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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764936">In Noctem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcdefghiluvyou/pseuds/abcdefghiluvyou'>abcdefghiluvyou</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Donghyuck is a smoll bean, Feeder Lee Donghyuck, M/M, Power Imbalance, Vampire Bites, Vampire Mark Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:01:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcdefghiluvyou/pseuds/abcdefghiluvyou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Vampires didn’t use to exist. But when the virus came and burned and ate through the bodies of the children it chose, it left them changed for good in one way or another, but definitely not human anymore.</p><p>Or:</p><p>When Donghyuck catches the fever, his human life is over and he awakens to his new place in life at the bottom of a merciless hierarchy that sees him as food and nothing else. </p><p>But, unwilling to give up, he vows that he will be more, ready to do anything to protect himself.</p><p>Enter Mark, Prince of the Vampire race, unbothered upholder of his world’s laws, who never asked to be drawn to a liar who smells too good and looks too pretty for his own good. Even though he’s a liar himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>525</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>917</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>🎃  welcome to my super spontaneous halloween project. 🎃<br/>(but lbr, I was searching for an excuse to write hot vampire Mark for ages)</p><p>This fic will update daily with shortish chapters varying in length, and the plan is<br/>to conclude it on October 31.... ahahaha, but we will see how that goes.</p><p>For now please enjoy the ominous prelude, while I'll try to get over my dislike of the use<br/>for the word "vampire" in chapter 2. </p><p>Have fun reading and please make sure to always check the tags when the fic updates.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>
    <span class="small">Carry my soul into the night</span><br/>
<span class="small">May the stars guide my way.</span><br/>
<span class="small">I glory in the sight</span><br/>
<span class="small">As darkness takes the day.</span>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <span class="small">–– In Noctem, Nicholas Hooper</span>
  </i>
</p><p> </p><p>As one would suspect, it starts with a fever.</p><p>Donghyuck burns up internally from one moment to the next, and when he collapses in the middle of class, he’s carried away to the infirmary with adept efficiency.</p><p>His parents are notified, as are the authorities, but then there’s nothing else to do than to wait while Donghyuck lies motionless in one of the sickbeds and loses more and more color as the minutes pass. </p><p>Inside of him a virus spreads. One that kills and devours, one that passes through all of him and leaves nothing unchanged. The process is fast and merciless, half of it over when Donghyuck’s parents arrive at his school to sit next to his bed and hold his hand. </p><p>Donghyuck stays unconscious through the whole process, fingers twitching in his mother’s hand as the temperature inside of him rises, the virus burning him internally, leaving something new behind, something that rises from the ashes, unfamiliar and raw. </p><p>His parents watch him in an almost detached way, faces expressionless, but when the official in attendance asks them if they’re feeling well, both Donghyuck’s mother and father nod.</p><p>This is the second time this is happening in the Lee household after all, and since Donghyuck’s twin sister made it through the virus in a fortunate way, they have good reason to hope that Donghyuck will do so, too.</p><p>That’s why neither his mother nor his father are as alarmed as it usually is when a child burns up even though the body goes deathly cold. The official shrugs and leans back against the infirmary wall, eyes on Donghyuck who passes through the last stages of the virus. </p><p>It can only go two ways, everyone knows. </p><p>In the best case the fever is never caught and the child never forced to turn into one thing or another. Only one out of several hundred thousand children catches the virus after all, too few for parents to seriously fear for their offspring, but also too many to call the infection rate rare. The outcome for those that catch the virus, though, is always the same, and it brings either devastation or fortune to their families. </p><p>“Dohyeon, his sister,” Donghyuck’s mother says when the sun starts to set and the shadows in the infirmary get longer. “She’s going to be happy when he wakes up. She misses him most. She’ll be happy when he can go to where she is.”</p><p>“Lee Dohyeon,” the official says as he flips through the documents in his hands. “Turned and transferred to the jurisdiction of the Night Court. She’s the older twin?”</p><p>“Younger,” Donghyuck’s father corrects, his eyes never straying from the motionless form of his son. “She caught the virus in spring.”</p><p>“She’s been going to school among her...kind… since then,” Donghyuck’s mother says, eyes shutting as she tries to keep her composure. “She’s going to be so happy when Donghyuck joins her.”</p><p>The official leans forward to glance at the documents in his hands, eyes narrowing at the two pictures of a girl that are neatly pinned on top of the file. </p><p>Lee Dohyeon, age fifteen, one picture of her from the beginning of the school year, and next to it one picture of her only a few weeks later, after she woke up from the fever. </p><p><i>The worst is</i>, the official thinks to himself, <i>that they almost look the same.</i></p><p>The same eyes, the same nose, the same mouth, the same girl. Only that she isn’t. In the second picture her eyes gleam bright red where they were brown before. Her sweet smile turned into that of a predator’s, full of sharp teeth, her canines elongated into fangs, showing fully since she’s too young to control them yet. The sunkissed color of her skin turned into a sickly pale white, blue veins shining through until she will be a little older, the official knows, her skin a little thicker.</p><p>And yet, she’s one of the few fortunate that came out of the fever like this. And even if it’s still sad, even if it means another of their children turned into something else, the official hopes that the twins’ parents are right and that Lee Donghyuck will make it through the transformation just the same as his sister did.</p><p>The alternative would be… well, even worse. </p><p>Ten years into the job, ten years of witnessing and documenting the transformation in children that catch the virus, ten years of watching parents despair, of families getting torn apart, and it’s still a tragedy whenever a child burns through the fever and comes out not in the way everyone hopes for them so desperately. </p><p><i>Please</i>, the official thinks as he watches the boy’s mother bend down so low that her forehead touches the hand of her son which she desperately holds in her own. <i>Please let his eyes be red.</i></p><p>The sun sets and everyone in the infirmary holds their breath. Any moment now, Donghyuck will awaken. As soon as the pull of the sun dies down the night will claim him in one way or another. </p><p>The air in the room shifts softly, then the boy stirs. </p><p>The official doesn’t see him blink open his eyes, but his own flutter shut in defeat when across the room Lee Donghyuck’s mother cries out and starts suffocating on sobs. </p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Lee Dohyeon is the first of her kind they let in to see Donghyuck. </p><p>It’s only a day later and the circumstances of Lee Donghyuck’s situation look similar enough to the day of his transformation, but the truth is that everything changed. </p><p>It’s protocol for parents of transformed children to commit their custody to the state, the children taken to safe facilities where they rest and wait until their new status is registered and they’re passed from the care of one race to another. </p><p>Because that’s what happens when the fever eats them up. No matter the outcome, the children don’t make it out as humans, their biology changed so irrevocably that it makes them fall under the jurisdiction of a different species. </p><p>Donghyuck’s parents already said their goodbyes to their son on the day of his transformation. Unlike how it is with their daughter, they will never see him again.</p><p>Their last wish for Dohyeon to see her brother as the first of her kind is born from a place of such utter devastation that, no matter how unorthodox, even Dohyeon’s authorities agree to it. Everyone in the Night Court was once a human after all, and everyone understands the despair of the twins’ parents, the last rays of hope they’re clutching to keep Donghyuck with them, to prevent losing him forever.</p><p>They’re twins, and the last chance to save Donghyuck is for Dohyeon to see her brother before anyone else, to claim him if possible, if compatible, even if it means another tragedy between the twins.</p><p>Nothing would ever be the same between them of course, Dohyeon forever her brother’s owner, Donghyuck forever bound to be his sister’s feeder, but he’d stay in the family at least, be with his parents and his twin, instead of bound and chained to someone he doesn’t know. </p><p>They’re twins. Their blood used to be the same. And as gross as it sounds from a human perspective, it’s a chance, a blood-born bond that might avert the tragedy of the Lee household. </p><p> </p><p>When Dohyeon enters, Donghyuck lies alone and curled up on the bed in his cell. </p><p>He looks smaller than she remembers, more fragile, too. But all humans look delicate to her since she changed, even adults like the human official who led her to Donghyuck. </p><p>Her brother stirs when she sits down on his bed, and Dohyeon’s breath gets stuck in her chest when his eyes blink open and look up at her. They used to have the exact same eyes, but where hers turned deep red as she transformed, his turned into a pale grey, adding to his overall fragility. </p><p>For a second he stares up at her in confusion and Dohyeon fears for the worst- but then he recognizes her with a gasp, and when she helps him up and pulls him into her arms, her chest feels tight at the way he curls against her and sobs out her name.</p><p>He feels like a baby, small and frail. Dohyeon closes her eyes, sends a prayer to the gods of both worlds she lived in and bends her head until her face presses gently against the curve of her brother’s neck.</p><p>Then she inhales, and as her chest fills with the warm scent of her twin’s skin, her eyes fill with the phantom of tears she no longer can cry, because Donghyuck is not the one for her. </p><p>He smells like home. He smells like memories. He smells like growing up together and thinking that nothing will ever change, he smells like the soap in the shower of their parents’ house, like the sheets of their bunkbed, like the cooking of their mother. </p><p>He smells like his transformation, too, a sweetness to his scent that tingles the gums in her mouth and makes her tongue twitch. But his blood doesn’t call to her, the warmth on his skin not feeling right, his body not fitting against her in a way that makes her feel like she found the missing piece of her new life.</p><p>Everyone of her kind needs someone of Donghyuck’s kind. But Donghyuck is not the one for her, and had she not lost her heart during the transformation, it would be breaking the moment she gently nudges him to uncurl from her so she can look at him for a last time. </p><p>“Hyuck,” she says, and her throat constricts when she realizes that this could be the last time she says his name. “<i>Hyuckah</i>, you’ll be fine.”</p><p>Talking is hard for Donghyuck, she knows. Where the fever burned away everything fragile inside of her to make room for more strength and power, it left her brother burned to ash and filled with nothing. </p><p>“You'll be fine,” she says again, more to herself, voice breaking when she cups her twin’s face in her hands. “You’re my brother. You’re my <i>twin</i>. I belong to a powerful clan now. They’ll make sure you’ll go to someone good. No one will dare to… to treat you bad with a sister belonging to a noble clan.”</p><p>Her brother stares at her with his brows furrowed, and for a second Dohyeon feels an intense echo of pain in her chest. </p><p>“Dohyeon,” Donghyuck whispers then, eyes fluttering shut and lips spreading into a smile. “Cry– cr– …<i>cry…baby</i>...”</p><p>“I can’t cry anymore, dummy,” she sobs, but she reaches for her twin to pull him back against herself, quiet whimpers leaving her lips as she rocks them both back and forth. </p><p>Behind them, the human official leaves the room, undoubtedly to inform the authorities about the situation. They just have a few more minutes, but only Dohyeon knows this, it’s only her who sobs at the thought that she might never see her brother again.</p><p>For a wild second she considers killing him. It would be easy, it would be merciful. </p><p>No matter what she promises him, in the end Donghyuck will belong to whoever the call of his blood reaches. </p><p>And Dohyeon might be new to this life, but she knows her kind, knows how they treat their food, the other side of the virus’s outcome: feeders just like Donghyuck, created solely for them, transformed into something less as they went through the same fire that gave birth to the ones sinking their fangs into them and sucking off their blood.</p><p>Donghyuck’s quiet whispers of  “<i>I love you</i>”, is what makes her tighten her arms around her twin instead. </p><p>It shouldn't be possible, not for many years to come, but Dohyeon cries, face buried in the soft tuft of hair on top of Donghyuck’s head, unable to stop. </p><p>She sits with him until there is nothing left inside of her, and she doesn’t let go of her twin until they come and take her away. </p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I uhmn. Hope you liked it. </p><p>It starts a bit sad, but it’s not gonna stay like<br/>this for long. As soon as Mark enters the story<br/>the tone will change as usual 🎃</p><p>Btw. This is a super duper old AU of mine, just<br/>ehhh re...vamped..... haha (゜-゜);</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Five years later, Donghyuck knows that the world of his sister, the vampire world, is made up of secrets.</p><p>There are lies and there are omitted truths, but there is nothing that is as guarded from the outside world as the foundations of the vampire world.</p><p>When Donghyuck was a human he only knew about the other world what was taught to him in school. He knew that one day the vampire race came into existence because of the virus, that measures were taken when their numbers grew, and that wars were fought when humankind realized that they were about to be outnumbered.</p><p>He learned that after a whole century of death and destruction, both the human and vampire race were at the brink of extinction, and that only the peace treaties signed all over the world saved them all in the end. Forced to acknowledge that one race couldn't win over the other- that both were dependent on each others' survival even, the human and vampire race lay down their arms and opened negotiations instead.</p><p>That's how a fragile equilibrium in the form of decelerations and laws was preserved in the end, the vampires leaving their human cradle to build their own world, coexisting peacefully alongside the human race, but left to govern themselves independently.</p><p>The great exodus of the vampires is well documented, and Donghyuck learned all about it in his first middle-school year, the history books describing the way vast, deserted areas, desolate and in ruins from the war were handed over to the newly established vampire government, the Night Court.</p><p>Back then, the human race had no idea that the vampires would turn the huge, bleak woodland areas that they were given into blooming metropolises in less than a human lifetime. Had they known, all historians agree, the human race would have thought twice about demanding a separation of the races and for the vampires to leave their cities to fend for themselves. </p><p>Today the vampire cities are far bigger, much wealthier and much more advanced than any of the human metropolises left scattered on the globe. </p><p>There are no countries, only continents anymore. But on the peninsula that used to be Korea, the largest vampire city is located where the southern capital used to be, before a clean bomb shattered in the middle of it, blasting it away entirely and only leaving a gigantic crater of devastation behind. </p><p>The force of the bomb pressed away so much of the ground that it created mountains all around the crater, enormous towers of stone and metal surrounding the remnants of what used to be Seoul.</p><p>It was declared a death zone back in the days of war, the human race never going back to it and gladly handing it over to the vampires a few decades later when the peace treaties were signed. </p><p>Today, the crater is filled with life again, a recessed city filling what used to be a void, everything built and planned so artfully that human tourists regularly travel the narrow paths through the forests and mountains leading to the vampire city.</p><p>Most of what is known about vampires, their culture and their society comes from the sparse exchanges that happened between the two races over the last peaceful century.</p><p>But five years after having been handed over to the jurisdiction of the Night Court, Donghyuck is well aware that everything the human world knows about vampires, is what the vampires allow them to know.</p><p>There are things the vampires don’t bother to hide or lie about. When it comes to Donghyuck’s kind, the human world has a good grasp on what's happening to feeders and the place they have in the vampire world.</p><p>Transformed by the virus, but left empty and burned to ashes internally instead of turning into something stronger, Donghyuck's kind awakens with most of their memories gone, with their bodies not knowing how to function anymore, with their heads blank, their emotions detached.</p><p>Empty and mostly unresponsive as they are, it's easy to dismiss everything they used to be before the virus took it away. And with their blood enhanced and coupled with the sudden ability to regenerate faster than any other species, it’s easy to look at them solely as food for the vampire race.</p><p>It’s convenient after all, the existence of feeders dispelling the worries of how to feed a growing vampire population without breaking the treaties signed between both races. And it makes sense, too, obviously, because when chaos brought the virus and created the first vampires, it also made sure to create the perfect source of food for them.</p><p>Donghyuck’s kind doesn’t mean much more than that to both races, parents letting go of their transformed children and saying their goodbyes to them as if they died, all for the greater good, because without feeders to satiate the thirst of vampires, war would break out and throw the world back into chaos immediately.</p><p>There isn’t much the vampire world hides about their feeders, simply because there is no real interest in them, the thought of their existence more burdening than anything else to the humans, so they simply try to not think about them too much. </p><p>There are other things, though, that the vampire world takes great care in keeping hidden forever. Secrets so grand, so unbelievable, that it would shatter the peace between the two races irreparably again, should they ever get revealed. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>One of the first, grand secrets Donghyuck learned about was on the day of his handover, when instead of an official car from the Night Court, his sister’s clan sent for servants to fetch and hide him as they drove him to the vampire capital. </p><p>He was mostly still apathetic back then, so his memories of the drive through the endless forests and passing through the mountains are blurry at best, even today. But he remembers the moment he saw the recessed city for the first time, remembers how his eyes widened to take it all in as the car slowly descended on the narrow road along the mountains. </p><p>The first secret was also the biggest – even to this day, and sometimes Donghyuck marvels at the way it stayed hidden for so many centuries when it had been right in front of the humans’ eyes since the beginning of time. </p><p>Deep under what used to be Seoul, deep under what is now the recessed city of vampires, an ancient city of the oldest, most noble bloodlines of the vampire world stretches undetected under the earth. The Hidden City of The Royal Court, home of the ancients, who Donghyuck learned to be the second most tightly kept secret: bloodlines of born vampires.</p><p>That was where the servants of his sister’s clan took him on the day they fetched him. Donghyuck had no idea back then, but allowing a virus-born feeder like him into the ancient city was just as unusual as when a noble clan claimed and adopted his sister, a virus-born vampire.</p><p>But she was beautiful, he was told much later, lips widening into a smile when his sister blushed prettily at her own words. She was beautiful and charming and lovely, and the heir of the noble Seo clan saw her and fell in love with her, and his clan adopted her in the hopes of forming a bond between them.</p><p>That hope was the single reason for Donghyuck's survival in the end.</p><p>Years later, when living was easier again, when he was able to think and speak and use his body to his will again, Donghyuck learned that when his sister couldn’t claim him, her clan did it in her place.</p><p>His rescue was essentially an engagement gift, Dohyeon begging her fiancé to give her back her brother, agreeing to marry him if he did.</p><p>She would have married him anyways, Donghyuck learned years later. It wasn’t too obvious back then, but Dohyeon had already been in love with the vampire she had been promised to. But saving Donghyuck meant agreeing to the engagement on that day, even though it took five more years until both her and Johnny Seo married officially. </p><p>Enamored and willing to do anything for her, Johnny gave in to her pleas immediately, his clan bribing the officials on both sides until Donghyuck’s name disappeared on the registration lists for new feeders and was added to the lists of deceased ones instead. </p><p>It was a shock to the whole clan when he finally arrived and collapsed into his sister’s arms, their absolutely identical looks alarming everyone around them. No one expected them to look alike, not when they were told that they were fraternal twins, but where their extreme similarity used to be a source of entertainment back in the human world, it was a reason for shame in their new place among the Seo clan.</p><p>No bride of a noble bloodline could have a twin feeder, and the mere thought of anyone lying eyes upon Donghyuck and mistaking him for his sister was an unbearable disgrace. </p><p>By blood everyone of the household was bound to keep the secrets of the clan, but from the day he arrived as his sister’s engagement gift, Donghyuck’s existence became the most well hidden secret of the Seo clan.</p><p>To the rest of the world, Lee Donghyuck died years ago, back in the human city he was born in. But for the Seo clan, Donghyuck became a secret no one talked about, a secret locked up and hidden far from the eyes of anyone outside of the clan. He became a secret only his sister loved and cared for, a secret that, for five years, grew quiet and obediently within the confines of the small room he was kept in. </p><p>To the clan’s astonishment, he also became a secret that hung on to life, not withering away as they expected him to when they locked him away. Instead of dying, he grew stronger, surprising them all when after a year he started talking again, blooming little by little under the care of his sister, until he was able to use his body again, mind coming back alive as well, asking for stimulation, his small room filling with the books his sister brought with her for him every day. </p><p>Three years into his confinement, Donghyuck was mostly himself again, a wonder no one could explain, but that was attributed to his bond to his vampiric twin sister in the end. They were bound by blood after all, not even their different transformations being able to change that. </p><p>Donghyuck’s recovery from his degeneration still had to stay a secret, but upon Dohyeon’s insistent pleas on behalf of her brother, Johnny gave in to let the boy out of his room to roam the clan house at least, colored contact lenses disguising him as a virus-born vampire servant to the rest of the household, a veil hiding the lower half of his face, keeping anyone from recognizing him due to the similarity to his twin sister. </p><p>The regained freedom sped up the last of his recovery, Donghyuck spending most of his time in the grand library to gain back what the virus stole from him and to fill the blanks about his new world that no one bothered to teach him.</p><p>It was then that he fully realized his new place in the world, an enlightenment that came with agonizing shame about himself and the sudden realization that sometimes ignorance was bliss. It was also then that the first desperate stray thoughts of having to be more, of not being able to accept his place as nothing at the bottom of the hierarchy, formed in his head.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Two more years later, five years since the fateful day of his transformation, Donghyuck wakes up on the day of Dohyeon’s wedding and knows that it’s time to run away. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>wow this... was a <b>struggle</b> to write.</p><p>world building chapters used to be my favorites, i wonder what happened lol.<br/>anyways, it is 7am, i have to get up in 5 hours for work so idk what to tell you<br/>other than to please be nice enough to excuse any mistakes my tired eyes missed.</p><p><b>Next chapter:</b> Marrrrrk. We love a Prince of Vampires unsuspectingly meeting the<br/>love of his life :')))</p><p> </p><p>Also, i have twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> click here </a> and i really want more<br/>friends to cry with over Mark Lee's confusing existence, Lee Donghyuck's forbidden<br/>ethereal beauty, and the audacity that is their soulmate friendship.<br/>Please consider joining my screams into the void :'&gt; </p><p>byeee ♥</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Please note the changed fic rating.<br/>(Honestly have no clue why it was tagged as M when the plan was always E 💀 weird.<br/>...also: Spooky I guess 🎃)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>It’s today or never</i>, Donghyuck tells himself on the day of his sister’s wedding.</p><p>As the biggest social event of the decade, and with the whole household busy and distracted, there will never be a better chance to slip away undetected, he knows. </p><p>No one will come looking for him either, not in the next two days at least. </p><p>The household had been busy with preparations for weeks, and the only person that regularly found time to come and check on him was his sister, who was perhaps the busiest of the whole clan while preparing for her big day. </p><p>She still came to see him last night, though, a piece of cake in her hands to quietly celebrate their 20th birthday after everyone in the household had gone to sleep. The cake, as well as her company, the small kiss she left on his cheek and the song she sang for him was her birthday gift to him. Donghyuck had clumsily kissed her back as they had held each other, Dohyeon’s voice uncharacteristically shaky when she promised him that nothing would ever change between them even though she would be married soon. </p><p><i>I love you so much,</i> she told him quietly, and Donghyuck believed her, because she was all he had, the person he had loved most in all of his life, so why should it be any different for her. </p><p>Later, after Dohyeon left, Donghyuck realized painfully that his place in her life wasn’t as significant as hers was in his. She loved him, but she loved so many other people, too. And while Donghyuck only had her love and her <i>to</i> love, Dohyeon had so many others around her who adored her. She was the beloved daughter, the precious clan member and the beautiful bride of the Seo clan, while he… was nothing. </p><p>The sudden realization had been most sobering and deepened his desire to go through with his plan to leave the clan grounds on the next day. </p><p>It is, after all, the only thing he can do for himself as an act of loving himself, he reasons while he gets ready for the day, hands shaking as he reaches for the small bag he prepared for his escape.</p><p>Comparing himself to Dohyeon always fills him with gratitude for his sister’s fortunate fate. Yesterday night, though, it filled him with nothing but shame and self loathing once again.</p><p>Dohyeon’s beautiful wedding is the clan’s birthday gift to her, and Donghyuck is genuinely happy for her. But the feeling of worthlessness, of being tossed aside and locked away is so painful, an echo of the despair he felt after his sister had left last night tightening his chest to the point of making it hard to breathe.</p><p>Donghyuck is so sick of feeling small. And the worst is that no matter how much he tries– no matter how much he pushed himself all the weeks before the wedding, he will never be enough and never be allowed to be more than Dohyeon’s hidden feeder twin.</p><p>Despite his efforts to improve himself, the clan made it clear from the start that there would be no place for him by her side on her most important day. That hadn’t come as a surprise to any of them, and they both had been quick to accept it, Dohyeon resigned, Donghyuck filled with feelings of defeat. </p><p>The following weeks he had still been genuinely happy whenever his sister came by his room to tell him more about her wedding progress. But at the same time plans of leaving the clan grounds unnoticed on the same day had formed in his head and had taken more and more shape as the days had passed. </p><p>He didn’t want to be the locked up twin of his sister, the disgraceful secret of the Seo clan and nothing else, anymore. Not on her wedding day, and hopefully not ever again. </p><p><i>It’s my birthday, too,</i> he had thought weeks ago, surprising himself with the way he had felt an intense surge of longing in his chest. <i>I want… I want to be good. I want a good life, too.</i></p><p>Since his transformation, strong emotions had been sparse and difficult to handle for him, too overwhelming even in the form of thoughts. But the desire for freedom had only grown stronger the closer Dohyeon’s wedding date had crept.</p><p>And so, with every visit from his sister and more exciting news about the wedding, he had found more and more courage to craft a careful plan of his own.</p><p><i>Everyone will come,</i> Dohyeon had said, <i>All the noble clans, even the royal family,</i> and Donghyuck had taught himself enough about the noble vampire clans to know that <i>everyone</i> meant an insane amount of guests. </p><p>The main house would be full, most of the side houses, too. And when his sister told him that the lesser clans would send their servants to help, Donghyuck knew that even the house he was hidden in would be filled with strangers.</p><p>Strangers, he had realized, that didn’t know him, wouldn’t recognize him and rat him out to Johnny. Strangers that wouldn’t even notice him, because they simply didn’t know about his existence. </p><p>Of course the clan would make sure that there wouldn't be the slightest possibility of anyone encountering him by chance. But Donghyuck had learned how to pick the lock on his door years ago, so, while planning, he hadn’t been worried about getting stuck in his room.</p><p>Honestly, even though the thought of running away had always been scary, and even though Donghyuck could face potentially disastrous consequences in the case of getting caught, he never felt too worried. The worry only came last night, when he lay awake after his sister left, his head filling with everything that could go wrong, doubts eating at him, making it impossible to find sleep.</p><p>Today he woke up filled with mixed feelings as well, but the more his hands prepare for the inevitable, the calmer he gets. After all, one of the side effects of his transformation is that he isn’t able to think too far ahead anymore, most of his thoughts concentrated on the next few steps, though planning his run for so long and mapping out the details of it had helped in getting better at forehanded planning again. </p><p>Outside his room, Donghyuck hears the servants getting ready for the day, their voices louder than usual, more excited, too, for the grand wedding day that is finally upon them. </p><p>Donghyuck takes a moment to walk to his door, face pressing against it to look through the keyhole, mouth falling open when he catches glimpses of at least three different colored servant robes. The sight makes his heart squeeze in his chest with excitement, because of how easily he’ll be able to slip away among so many servants from different noble houses.</p><p>As expected his door is locked when he tries to open it, but Donghyuck only shrugs, turns to finish packing up, one ear always listening to the noises from outside, waiting for the flow of servants to ebb away until he can pick his lock and slip away undetected.</p><p>It takes until noon, but when Donghyuck finally opens his door and soundlessly slips out, no one is there to witness it. </p><p>His room is located in the basement, close to the servant cellars. Donghyuck discovered a secret passage from one of the side cellars to the back gardens ages ago, the first smile spreading on his lips when he makes it through the house without meeting anyone on his way up.</p><p>He can hear the bustling of the servants far across the back garden in the many side and main houses, voices and the scent of countless dishes wafting all the way over, making his stomach growl. But he ignores his hunger, eyes only briefly glancing to where the wedding is in full preparation, before he turns around and carefully ducks away.  </p><p>It’s only a few steps in the open, but Donghyuck dies a thousand deaths until he reaches the tall hedges marking the end of the gardens, body pushing through until he emerges behind them in the small space between the hedges and the wall running around the Seo clan grounds. </p><p>He takes a single deep breath, his heart hammering wildly in his chest as he allows himself to relax. The most dangerous part, getting to this place without being noticed, went smoothly. He carefully sits down on the ground, too exhausted to try climbing the wall immediately, his body not used to pushing itself so much anymore.</p><p>“Useless,” Donghyuck grumbles quietly to himself as he leans against the wall, eyes fluttering shut when he feels dizziness overcome him. </p><p>He sighs, but gives in to the need of having to rest for the moment. He has long since accepted that his body changed after the transformation, that he had lost most of his strength even though he had managed to rehabilitate his overall mobility over the years in confinement.</p><p>But it's so frustrating, the way he is always so quickly out of breath, so tired and exhausted when he barely does anything, barely even moves. His arms are weak and thin, his legs only able to carry him for a while before starting to shake. </p><p>In all his planning, his body strength was what worried him most when he mapped out his escape route. It was clear from the start that he'd have to rely on it, but he was never sure if he really could do so without it failing him. </p><p>Donghyuck forces his eyes open and glances to his right where a small section of the border wall does an artful downward arc, taking at least a good meter from its height, conveniently enough right at where a thick branch of one of the plum trees between the hedges reaches over the wall. </p><p>To this day, Donghyuck has no idea how plants and trees and flowers bloom this strong and tall in a city that is underneath the earth, but whatever it is that helps them grow– he thanks it as he gets up on shaky legs and forces himself to walk over to the next step of his plan. </p><p>This is the part that will make or break it all, he knows. Quite literally, because his fragile bones wont save him should he slip and fall from the tree. </p><p>Donghyuck swallows, chest constricting for a second, but he forces himself to inhale deeply, hands reaching out for the trunk in front of him before he hoists up his whole body, all the air pushing out of his lungs as he gasps in exertion. </p><p>He almost doesn’t make it, and, in retrospect, it will always be a mystery to him how he actually made it in the end. </p><p>His body doesn’t want to cooperate, limbs shaking so hard that he slips and almost falls at least three times on his way up, but he makes it to the desired branch after a good while of struggling, of gritting his teeth and biting his tongue, of breaking his fingernails on the bark of the tree, of scratching open the palms of his hands and losing one of his shoes, regretfully.</p><p>He makes it up and halfway across the branch undetected, too, heart hammering out of his chest, body underneath his clothes bathed in sweat as he risks a single moment of rest to catch his breath, eyes widening when he takes his first real glance at the world behind the Seo clan’s border wall. </p><p>To his disappointment there isn’t too much right around him. An empty street stretches along the wall until it disappears from his sight, but in the far back, due to the ground turning uphill, Donghyuck can make out some structures resembling buildings, enough in number to form at least a small town, he thinks excitedly. </p><p>He leans forward a little, eager to see more, and that’s the moment his luck runs out and his carefully crafted plan goes to shit.</p><p>“Hey!” A voice calls out, horribly loud and terribly close.</p><p>Donghyuck flinches as if slapped, hands slipping where they held him up on the branch. And because he expects a servant to have discovered him he turns his body around on instinct, losing his balance entirely as the momentum makes him fall backwards immediately, a soundless scream getting stuck in his throat when the world turns upside down and the Seo clan gardens disappear from his sight behind the wall. </p><p>He falls on the other side into freedom, <i>and</i>, Donghyuck thinks in the split second before he crashes hard on the ground, <i>to his certain death.</i> </p><p>Only that he doesn’t. </p><p>Before his body hits the ground it hits the safety of two outstretched arms, catching him with so much ease that Donghyuck is instantly alarmed, though it’s hard to think when pain races up and down his body, pulsing disgustingly under his skin and shaking in his bones, making him squeeze his eyes shut and groan in distress.</p><p>“Hey,” the same voice says, not as loud as before, but much closer now. “Hey, I got you.”</p><p><i>Oh</i>, Donghyuck thinks through the pain, even though he can only whimper in pain. <i>Oh, it wasn’t a servant that caught him trying to run.</i></p><p>“Hey, you okay? What on earth were you doing up on that tree?”</p><p>Donghyuck shudders when he’s lowered down, his knees immediately buckling, legs giving way as he falls ungracefully on the ground. </p><p>It’s when there is another alarmed shout of: “Hey!” and the tug of hands on his arms pulling him up again, that Donghyuck finally forces his eyes open.</p><p><i>Oh god no</i>, is the only thing he thinks when the vampire in front of him, a boy roughly his age, tall and broad and absolutely devastatingly handsome, opens his mouth to make a sound of confusion. </p><p> </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon?...But... Aren’t you getting married today?”</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><br/><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a></p><p> <br/>hihi, next chapter will be fun c: ♥</p><p>poor Donghyuck. he tried so hard, and got so faaaaar,<br/>but in the eeeeend it didn't even maaaaatterrrr....<br/></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first second, Donghyuck freezes and only stares up at the vampire with his eyes wide open, a caught expression on his face.</p><p>It’s really just the shortest of moments, the span of two heartbeats maybe, but Donghyuck’s brain almost jolts as it goes into sudden overdrive, all his dormant instincts kicking in as he realizes what kind of mortal danger he suddenly finds himself in. </p><p>Everything turns extremely sharp, all his foggy senses focusing into crystal clearness. In only two seconds, Donghyuck’s brain registers the unusual deep red of the vampire’s eyes, so dark that they almost seem black. His eyes zero in onto a pretty mole on the vampire’s left cheek next, then glance up to take in the way strands of his dark hair fall into his extremely handsome face. </p><p>In the next second, Donghyuck is suddenly hyper aware of the hands still gripping him by his arms, hard fingers digging into his soft flesh in a way that makes pain throb dully under his skin. Donghyuck squirms, uncomfortable at being touched when no one but his sister held him for so long, but before he can pull out of the vampire’s hands, something... happens.</p><p>There is no warning, no explanation, when out of nowhere a sudden pull shoots like lightning through his body, setting every fibre of his being alight, making him flinch and gasp, mouth dropping open as his head jerks up in panic to stare at the vampire still holding him.</p><p>A weird, incorporeal feeling passes through Donghyuck’s chest when their eyes lock, and he sees blank astonishment on the vampire’s face, then wonder, then absolute disbelief, all of the expressions switching faster than heartbeats as they both stare at each other. </p><p>It’s too much, too fast. The feeling in his chest swells, but Donghyuck’s body is small, his ribs shaking as his lungs expand, his whole body feeling weightless in a bad way, his breath getting stuck as he starts shaking.</p><p>He registers the vampire’s frown and how a guarded expression takes over in his eyes, jaw twitching, hands on Donghyuck hardening again. </p><p>The most base part of Donghyuck’s brain, the one that feels unfamiliar and makes him feel weird and squirmy in the vampire’s hold, pushes the panic aside and focuses on the difference in height and strength and broadness between them with oddly particular interest.</p><p>Those hands could crush him, he realizes, the thought making something horrible and hot flip in his lower stomach, chest constricting in sudden… is it fright? Donghyuck has no name for it, but whatever it is, it intensifies, focuses more and more on the vampire staring down at him, making his knees turn to jelly and the heat in his abdomen swirl and coil. </p><p>It’s that weird, unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling that finally makes him blink and break out of his stupor, eyes squeezing shut when he pulls his arms out of the vampire’s grasp with a cry, cheeks heating up for some reason he can’t explain as he hastily turns away to hide. </p><p>He curls into himself, his whole body shaking in distress as he grabs for the long scarf around his shoulder, deft fingers loosening the knot holding it together to pull it up over his head. His hands tremble when he lifts them while holding onto the corners of the scarf, the lower part of his face disappearing behind the cloth as well, palms pressing against his mouth in order to keep any sound from escaping. </p><p>Like this only the smallest part of him, his eyes, disguised red with the colored lenses, are visible, but Donghyuck is still shaking in distress, a sudden fear of being discovered slamming into his system.</p><p>The thought is so terrible that Donghyuck reaches into the safety of his head, eyes squeezing shut as he goes a few hours back to when he dressed himself, desperately going over his choices again and calming down gradually when he remembers that he made no mistakes while he prepared himself for the day. </p><p>In the morning, when he got ready for his grand escape, the thought of anyone realizing who- or more fatally, <i>what</i> he is, was what scared him most. It’s what made him dress inconspicuously in only the most plain colored things, Donghyuck remembers with a relieved sigh, even though Dohyeon had gifted him many beautiful clothes over the years. Everything she gave him was always made from the finest of silks, though, robes artfully tailored in ways that made the designs flow beautifully around him, hiding his small body. </p><p>Those clothes had stayed in the wooden chest by his bed as he had opted for the sturdier and much more practical linen sets the Seo clan provided him with. They weren’t exactly as simple as the ones they dressed their servants in, since Donghyuck had a special status within the clan. But they also weren’t embroidered with the crests marking him as a family member… thus leaving him undefined to the trained eye. </p><p>While preparing for the day, Donghyuck had hoped that no one would care to take a closer look at his choice of clothing, but, and he thanks god and every ancient vampire lord for his foresight, even when he packed his bag full of optimism he hadn’t been naive enough not to take precautions and wrap one of his scarfs around his shoulders.  </p><p>Big enough to be used as a blanket, or more likely: to cover him from head to toe whenever he had to hide his identity while slipping out of his room, Donghyuck took the one scarf that belongs to his sister, a beautiful, offwhite colored cotton cloth which she left in his room for him ...embroidered with her initials and the Seo crest, Donghyuck suddenly realizes with a start, eyes opening wide and mouth dropping open as he, <i>”Oh</i>”-s soundlessly.</p><p>Gone is the feeling of dread, as sudden realization makes him turn back around to the vampire. Donghyuck’s heart does a weird flip in his chest again, but this time he doesn’t feel too scared, hidden under the cloth as he is, with only his eyes visible and the embroidered emblem of his sister’s clan saving him from being discovered. </p><p>This vampire… has all the reason to really mistake him for Dohyeon, he realizes. That’s why instead of tensing, Donghyuck relaxes when the vampire takes a step forward, even though his dark eyes keep staring at him intensely, eyebrows furrowing as he tilts his head.</p><p>It makes some of his hair fall into his forehead, and Donghyuck doesn’t know why his mind feels the need to inform him that the vampire’s hair color, which he assumed to be black, is actually a beautifully deep brown, but he takes that information and shoved it where his unasked observation of the vampire’s sparkly eyes is already locked away from his consciousness. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire says, but his voice changed, and that... that kind of worries Donghyuck a little. “I guess I understand your reason for running away now.”</p><p>Donghyuck stares, absolutely lost. His frozen facial expression doesn’t alarm the vampire in the slightest, though, or maybe it’s because of how the scarf covers most of his confusion. Another step and the vampire is right in front of him, and Donghyuck forces himself to keep absolutely still when the vampire bends down, face still tilted as he stops at eye level, his dark gaze boring into Donghyuck’s wide eyes. </p><p>For a split second that weird pull is back, and Donghyuck lets out the smallest of gasps, barely audible, but it widens the vampire’s lips into a full smile, one corner of his mouth pulling up immediately, though, until he suddenly smirks in an utterly unabashed way.</p><p>Donghyuck feels his heart drop painfully, before it starts to beat twice as fast as before. It makes heat rush up into his cheeks, warming them up until he feels them tingle against his palms even through the scarf. The vampire chuckles, and it’s that sound that has Donghyuck’s knees weaken ultimately, body swaying in warning before he almost collapses on the ground.</p><p>Almost… because the vampire’s hands are there to catch him again, this time pulling him in until Donghyuck’s small body falls against the vampire’s broad chest. </p><p>“I must say I’m surprised,” the vampire hums nonchalantly as if it’s absolutely not out of the ordinary to have Donghyuck suddenly pressed against himself. “I was under the impression that you were very smitten with my cousin Johnny.”</p><p>At the vampire’s words, Donghyuck tenses immediately, fear shocking him back into motionlessness when he realizes what he just heard.</p><p><i>Cousin. Johnny.</i> his mind repeats blankly. </p><p>He’s trapped in the arms of a noble vampire- <i>one who belongs to his sister’s family</i>, one who, even if Donghyuck somehow manages to slip away and run without him catching him again, will find out that he defenitely <i>isn’t</i> Dohyeon but a runaway in her clothes as soon as he meets the rest of the family.  </p><p><i>Oh my god,</i> Donghyuck thinks, shaking in the vampires arms, his life flashing in front of his eyes. <i>Oh my god, I will die. Johnny will kill me.</i></p><p>“Lady Dohyeon?” the vampire’s voice sounds as if from far away, cutting through his internal despair, and when Donghyuck looks up he sees confusion and concern in those dark eyes. “Are you unwell?”</p><p>“I must go,” Donghyuck finds the strength to whisper, but he is shaking too much to try and push out of the vampire’s arms.</p><p>His words earn him a moment of stunned silence, before the vampire tilts his head again, making Donghyuck’s heart flip uncomfortably once more. <i>Oh</i>, Donghyuck thinks, not without desperation as he swallows and tries to stop his body from falling apart. <i>If only he wouldn’t look so handsome, if only he’d take his dark eyes and his red lips, his even skin, his sharp cheekbones and his angular face and…. and leave me alone!</i></p><p>Donghyuck balls his hands to fists, surprising himself most when he pulls himself together and in a single act of bravery pushes the vampire away from himself. </p><p>It’s like pushing against a concrete wall, but Donghyuck grits his teeth and uses the vampire’s body as a halt to turn and slip away, heart beating almost out of his chest when he really makes it out of his arms and a single step away from him. That’s as far as he comes, though, because before he can distance himself any further, the vampire’s arms wrap around his middle again and pull him back.</p><p>Donghyuck yelps, but before he can open his mouth to do anything else, the vampire already turns him around to have them look at each other again. This time Donghyuck is scared for real, because his hands let go of his scarf when he pushed the vampire away, all of his face visible now, the cloth slowly slipping from his head.</p><p>But the vampire has no eyes for all that, or maybe he does, but he doesn’t seem to find anything strange about the way Donghyuck looks, even though he’s much smaller, much more delicate, both in face and body, than his sister. </p><p>The virus made sure to keep him stuck at the age it ate through him, while his sister grew and bloomed into the beauty she is today. It’s only due to sheer luck that Donghyuck didn’t end up tiny like most feeders tend to be, and that’s only because he used to be one of the tallest kids back when he was still a growing human teenager. Of course he’ll never reach his full potential anymore, not since the virus, but his unusual tallness and the red colored contact lenses aside, he is still too pale and fragile to pass as a vampire, let alone Dohyeon, who is known to be tall and strong and extraordinarily beautiful. </p><p>“Where are you going?” The vampire’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts, and it’s the way his voice is much deeper than before, bordering on a growl, that makes Donghyuck snap back into full attention.</p><p>In his best imitation of Dohyeon’s voice he whispers a quiet, “Away?”, cringing internally at the timid way it comes out.</p><p>On one hand he thanks every deity he knows for his slightly higher pitched than usual voice which makes it easier to imitate his sister. On the other hand Dohyeon doesn’t talk like this ever, his sister confident and calm where he is almost dying from fear, voice shaking without him being able to calm down.</p><p>“But- why would you– <i>you can’t leave</i>!” the vampire says, and yeah, there’s definitely a growl in his voice, Donghyuck thinks as his knees weaken again.</p><p>“I… run. To get away. I want to–” Donghyuck tries again weakly, but he doesn’t even get to finish his sentence, the vampire cutting him off with a confused sound, the irritation on his handsome face giving way to honest concern.</p><p>“But- we met! You and I.. you can’t just–” the vampire cuts himself off, one hand letting go of Donghyuck to push the wild strands of hair from his face, looking extremely frustrated and yet… unfairly good again.</p><p>Donghyuck swallows, helpless frustration tightening his chest uncomfortably for a moment. Then both of the vampire’s hands are back on him, this time on his hips.</p><p>“Look,” the vampire says, but Donghyuck really doesn't want to, really has enough of looking at that stupidly handsome face. “You can’t tell me that you don’t know what happened earlier. The pull, I know you felt it, too. I know you’re a transformed vampire, but surely your clan taught you how <i>rare</i> it is to find your mate? You can’t just dismiss that– you can’t just– <i>I’m your mate</i>. Out of every vampire, the bond made you connect to <i>me</i> and– ”</p><p>“Uhmn,” Donghyuck interrupts, and it’s his desperation to get away from the situation and nothing more that makes him find the courage to do so. The vampire’s words and the more and more passionate way he looks at Donghyuck are scaring him, chest constricting in a really bad way that makes him suffocate on fear.</p><p>“I… I don’t know who you are, but–”</p><p>“<i>You... don’t?</i>” the absolutely bewildered voice of the vampire interrupts, and he really sounds so astonished, with such an utterly dumbfounded expression on his face, that the words get stuck in Donghyuck’s throat.</p><p>“I’m… not… really well versed in our <i>uhhh</i> extended family bloodlines. I’m ...sorry,” Donghyuck stutters, for once uninterrupted, but it's probably only due to the way his words leave the vampire utterly speechless. He has no idea why all of this is so shocking, but he really doesn’t care, honestly. He has no idea who this vampire is and he also doesn’t want to stay and find out. </p><p>Slowly slowly, though, the vampire’s mouth forms into a single, expressive <i>o</i>, before it eventually snaps shut, wonder and amazement taking over his formerly baffled expression. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” he eventually says, and Donghyuck feels a flutter of hope when the hands on his hips let go and the vampire takes a step back. </p><p>That hope tumbles into the void with what little is left of Donghyuck’s hopes for his plans, though, when the vampire reaches for one of his hands, bows down and presses a kiss to his knuckles. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” he repeats, and when he looks up from where his lips are still pressed to Donghyuck’s delicate knuckles, Donghyuck feels his heart skip at the unholy gleam in the vampire’s eyes. </p><p>“The name is Mark Lee,” he says with another kiss to Donghyuck’s knuckles, but this time he keeps his eyes staring up at him. </p><p>There is that smirk again, and his voice drops another octave when he rises back to his full height, his grip on Donghyuck’s hand tightening when he suddenly pulls on it. He catches Donghyuck in his arms when he falls forward, and before the boy even fully realizes what’s going on he’s back against the vampire’s–  against <i>Mark Lee’s</i> chest.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m afraid, now that I have you I won’t let go of you, Lady Dohyeon.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a></p><p> <b>FYI:</b> this fic is not about Donghyuck living as his sister or being mistaken as a girl :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite all his shortcomings due to the virus, Donghyuck’s plan for freedom is carefully crafted, weeks upon weeks of putting it all together and perfecting every detail, even if it made his head hurt.</p><p>His brain, burned empty and slow to store and connect information, worked on overdrive for so long, filled itself with a high flow of information so consistently that in the end Donghyuck returned it almost back to its former quickness, at least regarding all the information he knows by heart.</p><p>He feels it working now, thoughts frantically shooting through his brain as it drops and readjusts steps of his escape route to shape and twist and fit everything to the current situation. </p><p>Donghyuck stares at the vampire, Mark Lee, who still holds his hand, and feels a slight headache throb behind his forehead. It comes with a wave of annoyance, but he needs a moment to place it, his brain too focused on other things before it hits him.</p><p>This vampire, this <i>Mark Lee</i>, offered his name like a gift, one of his eyebrows raised and a smirk on his lips and all, like it must mean something grand to Donghyuck. And maybe it would, if he really was Dohyeon, but as he's just himself he has absolutely no idea who this vampire is.</p><p><i>Though...</i>, a quiet voice at the back of his head says, <i>Though he looks really hot.</i></p><p>Donghyuck’s eyes widen at that thought, heat flushing into his face and tinting his cheeks an embarrassed red. </p><p>The vampire stares down at him with both his eyebrows raised now, and thankfully that looks stupid enough to pull Donghyuck out of his stupor. He yanks his hand out of the vampire’s grip and squirms away from his hold, both of his palms pressing against the Vampire’s chest to push him away.</p><p>Of course the vampire doesn’t even sway, instead Donghyuck slips a little before he balances himself and steps back, out of the vampire’s personal space. This time there are no arms to pull him back, but Donghyuck keeps his eyes on the vampire, not trusting the way that smirk softens into a smile, the vampire tilting his head again as he stares at him.</p><p><i>Dear god,</i> Donghyuck thinks, irritated. <i>Does he have to look so good.</i></p><p>Those stupid hair strands are falling back into the vampire’s stupidly handsome face again - and Donghyuck honestly has enough of it, his brain informing him that he has been held up for long enough, too, and that he has to hurry if he still wants to make it to the outer ring of the noble families’ district before nightfall.</p><p>“I have to go,” he informs the vampire again, and it’s somewhat satisfying to see his words wiping off that annoying smile.</p><p>“You–” the vampire says, but when Donghyuck quickly bows and then grabs for his scarf to put it over his head again to leave, the vampire lets out a disbelieving laugh. </p><p>“You’re not joking– you’re really leaving, huh.”</p><p>Donghyuck grips his scarf tighter, hands pulling on it so much that the material closes his face in like a curtain, one of the embroidered emblems digging uncomfortably into his left cheek. He nods quickly, only once, body turning halfway around, ready to walk away as quickly as possible from this situation.</p><p>The vampire’s words, <i>”You’re my mate</i>” shoot like a warning through his head, and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut in distress, knowing full well what that means and that he has to get away as quickly as possible.</p><p>He is no mate of anyone, he knows, least of this vampire, Mark Lee. </p><p>All that Donghyuck is, is a feeder in disguise. And what this vampire thinks to be a mate bond, is nothing but Donghyuck’s blood calling to him, luring him in with its enticing scent. </p><p>Donghyuck tenses at that thought, stomach flipping unpleasantly when he hears the vampire shuffle behind him. He needs to go, needs to slip away before something happens. The longer he stays with this vampire close enough to smell his blood, the more likely his secret will be discovered, he knows. </p><p>“Good...bye then,” he offers quietly, in his best Dohyeon voice, quickly bowing once more before he fully turns around and walks away. </p><p>He has to force himself not to run, his whole body shaking under the cover of the thick scarf that cascades down his light form. Donghyuck’s heart almost beats out of his chest and he doesn’t dare breathe- ears straining to catch any sort of noise coming from behind him, but everything stays quiet and he walks down the street undisturbed. </p><p>There is a slight curve to the left, the road gradually disappearing from view as it runs along the Seo clan grounds, and Donghyuck forces his shaking legs to move a little faster, eager to get out of the vampire’s view.</p><p>It’s his relief, the sigh he lets out when he turns the corner, that makes him not hear the vampire when he catches up and pulls him back with a yank on his arm.</p><p>Donghyuck just barely suppresses a scream when he suddenly falls backwards, the arm the vampire pulled on throbbing horribly, as does his back when it hits the vampire’s chest. His sister’s scarf falls from his body and to the ground, leaving him exposed against the tall vampire as he stares up at him with poorly concealed fear in his eyes.</p><p><i>Oh god</i>, he thinks, heart in his chest skipping several beats as shock flashes hot and cold through his body. <i>He knows.</i></p><p>The expression on his face, though, seems to alarm the vampire instead of angering him- at least enough to soften his grip on Donghyuck. But he doesn’t let go, only reaches for him with his other hand as well to turn him around. </p><p>Donghyuck’s lips start trembling, he can’t help it. </p><p><i>This is it,</i> he thinks. <i>He knows. He’ll drag me back to the clan grounds, throw me in front of the elders, and not even Dohyeon will be able to save me this time. I’m dead.</i></p><p>But the vampire doesn’t leash out to punish him for pretending to be his sister. Instead, he quickly cups Donghyuck’s face in his palms, thumbs rubbing the moist corners of Donghyuck’s eyes until his lids flutter shut. </p><p>The touch is too careful, too intimate to be ill intended, and Donghyuck is so scared and confused, not understanding what’s going on, his heart clenching in his chest as he shudders in the vampire’s hold.</p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire murmurs, and his words have sudden waves of cool, soothing relief run through Donghyuck’s overwhelmed body. He collapses against the vampire with a sob, but strong arms wrap around him, keeping him from falling down. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire repeats. “Don’t cry, my lady.”</p><p>But, Donghyuck is absolutely out of his mind, so scared, confused, relieved and overwhelmed that he can’t help it, his brain blank while feeling too full and heavy at the same time. He can’t think straight, his mind not sure on what to focus: keeping him from fainting, or preparing the next steps to get out of the situation.</p><p>He never planned for this to happen, doesn’t know what to do next. The vampire is too strong and too determined to hold him, and Donghyuck feels his chances of getting away slipping through his fingers, leaving him scared to death, because it’s only a matter of time until he’ll be found out.</p><p>So, he cries, absolutely overwhelmed, and wishes the vampire would let go of him. But then his touch feels so so so good, too, and it’s been so long since anyone other than his sister was good to him and held him like this. Donghyuck feels himself cling, confusing himself even more when his small body curls against the vampire’s chest, unable to help himself. </p><p><i>Maybe everyone is right, and feeders are really brainless dolls, too stupid to be anything else than food,</i> Donghyuck thinks as he presses his wet face against the vampire’s chest, too tired to fight the urge anymore. He definitely feels as stupid as the vampires always tell him that he is. But for once the thought doesn’t make his chest tighten in despair. He’s held so gently, treated so preciously that he feels himself calm down instead, not that it makes any sense.</p><p>“My lady,”  the vampire says as he runs one of his hands down the slope of Donghyuck’s spine. It feels so nice that Donghyuck hiccups, “There is no need to cry. I promised I wouldn’t let go of you- and I won't.”</p><p>Donghyuck keeps quiet, and the vampire apparently takes that as a good sign of Donghyuck accepting what's happening. His voice is a little louder, a little more adamant when he continues to talk.</p><p>“Was it at the gathering of the five noble clans?” he asks, but Donghyuck has no clue what he’s talking about and only rubs his nose miserably against the vampire's fine cotton shirt. It’s made from such a soft material that it almost feels unreal against Donghyuck’s skin, only the uneven texture of a small embroidered crest disturbing the nice feeling every now and then. </p><p>“Or was it during the celebrations of the longest night?” the vampire continues, and Donghyuck forces himself to listen, no matter how quickly exhaustion spreads through his whole body, making him slump more and more in the vampire’s arms.</p><p>“It doesn’t actually matter… but it must have been scary to sit among the nobles… next to your fiancé even, and suddenly feel the pull.”</p><p>Donghyuck makes a soft noise at that, suddenly feeling very sorry for himself, even if the story isn't about him. </p><p>“I know that you're trying to run from your marriage, because you must have realized that I’m your mate.” A small laugh, and Donghyuck sighs when the chest he has his face pressed against rumbles. It feels nice, nice enough to have his eyes flutter shut, mind blissfully blank as he listens to the vampire’s deep voice.</p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire says sweetly, and for a second Donghyuck genuinely feels sad that he’s not his sister, when the tips of two fingers gently tuck one of his hair locks behind his ear. </p><p>Dohyeon, who’s not a fan of overly romantic stuff, would probably throw up in her mouth, but Donghyuck soaks up all of the sweet words and gestures, and feeds them straight to his bruised and broken self esteem. </p><p>“I know it must be scary to go against the wishes of your clan, but I am your mate, and I will protect you. In fact…” the vampire laughs, making Donghyuck sigh again when that low rumble is back in the vampire’s chest. “In fact, I’m the <i>only one</i> who can promise protection in such unusual circumstances. Usually you’d have to marry Johnny no matter what, but you must know that I outrank him, of course…”</p><p>The words take a moment to register, but when they finally sink into Donghyuck’s mind they make him tense with a start and snap his eyes so wide open that they feel like popping out of his sockets. He flinches out of his pliant state, jerks his head up to stare at the vampire, mind chaotically trying to throw together the names of the five most highest ranking noble vampire clans.</p><p>The Seo clan is one of them of course, and there is the Na clan that is just slightly below his sister’s clan. Both the Kim and the Jung clan outrank the Seo clan by a fraction, the Kims and the Jungs so tightly interwoven, their offspring wedded so often that they’re mostly considered to be just one big clan with two main branches. Above all the clans is the Lee clan, whose bloodline is the strongest, dates back the farthest, all of them descendants of the royal vampire family. </p><p>Of course Mark <i>Lee</i> belongs to the one clan outranking all the others, Donghyuck realizes belatedly, hating himself for finding it hot, despite the fear surging back into his system.  </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon?” the vampire asks when Donghyuck’s breathing starts to get irregular. God, his body is at its limit. There is just so much he and his fragile mind can take after years of living sheltered and locked up in a room. </p><p>“I’m– fine…” Donghyuck presses out, hands pushing against the vampire’s broad chest again. It’s starting to become their thing, Donghyuck thinks unamused. “I… I need to–”</p><p>“Run?” The vampire finishes for him, and before Donghyuck can react, he’s pushed back just enough that they can look at each other. In the next moment, the vampire’s hands reach for Donghyuck’s again, gripping them so tightly that Donghyuck yelps. </p><p>The vampire lets go immediately, a puzzled expression on his face when he watches Donghyuck twist in pain, a frown furrowing his eyebrows when he sees the way Donghyuck’s fingers shake and throb.</p><p>He reaches for them so quickly that Donghyuck has no chance to react, though he yelps again when the vampire's fingernails dig into his palms. But when he tries to yank them away, the vampire holds on, face full of genuine consternation as he cries out, “My Lady! You’re bleeding!”</p><p>Donghyuck stills, pain forgotten as his gaze drops down to his palms, face losing all color when he sees the vampire’s fingers coated in his blood. </p><p>He knows then and there that he’s screwed. No matter how long he managed to fool this vampire with his voice and his face– it is all over now. Not even the densest vampire could mistake him for his sister while he’s bleeding like this, not since the transformation changed his and Dohyeon’s blood into two fundamentally different things. </p><p>His sister, whose blood turned into poison and who is filled with the blood of others, while Donghyuck’s body is full of thicker, sweeter, and richer blood than any other being could ever hope to be. </p><p>His blood, that also misses the distinct scent and mark of the Seo clan, the bit of Seo poison every member of the household carries within themselves.</p><p>Mark Lee realizes this the same second Donghyuck does, and his face, too, goes deathly pale. It makes his eyes look even darker, only for a moment, though, before his grip on Donghyuck’s hands tightens and his eyes start to gleam in a deep, full, red. </p><p>Donghyuck flinches when pain shoots from his hands through the whole of his body, but he doesn’t dare close his eyes and curl away, not when the vampire in front of him opens his mouth, fangs out and ready to rip through him.</p><p>“You’re not Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire says, and his voice, too, is so much darker than before. </p><p>Donghyuck only whimpers, weakly trying to pull his hands from the vampire’s grip, but all that happens is fingernails digging painfully into his bleeding flesh, making him sob out loudly as his arms start trembling in shock.</p><p> </p><p>“Who,” Mark Lee says, and he looks ready to attack, ready to kill. “Who are you?”</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a></p><p> </p><p>slightly slow chapter, but i wrote it down super fast for some reason lol :'D</p><p>soooomeone's gonna spill his true name in the next chapter,<br/>who's excited for Mark hot vampire prince Lee to say "Donghyuck" for the first time? hihi &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p><b>warning:</b> mind control / mind intrusion</p><p>(Mark has spooky vampire powers you all :D )</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Honestly, Donghyuck could lie.</p><p>While Mark Lee is aware that he isn’t his sister, he could still come up with something convincing enough to save himself from his imminent death. His sluggish mind is already almost at the brink of short circuiting with the way it frantically works on a solution… headache back to throb behind his forehead.</p><p>But, Donghyuck is <i>exhausted</i>. </p><p>And so very very tired of hiding and lying. Admittedly, it’s the worst time ever to feel like that, because his survival will… well, rely on his skill to weasel himself out of this mess. But his body is at its limit, his brain turning more and more into mush, and honestly his incapability to function isn’t even the worst – it’s…. <i>ugh</i>, Donghyuck is just so annoyed that this clueless, <i>dumb</i>, stupidly hot vampire ruined his brilliant genius plan and will either kill him, or, even worse, drag him back in front of the Seo clan and let his sister’s husband kill him.</p><p>Above all, though, he is sick of hearing his sister’s name slipping from this clueless, <i>dumb</i>, stupidly hot vampire’s mouth. </p><p>“I asked you a question,” the vampire growls, and Donghyuck checks back into reality when he’s shaken in the grip of the vampire’s harsh hands. </p><p>He barely suppresses a groan when pain prickles up and down from various places of his body, the worst still coming from his bleeding palms, though, where the vampire’s fingers still dig into his flesh.</p><p>“I’m not Lady Dohyeon,” he gasps out, ignoring the shrill warning bells going off in his head. There’s something his tired, exhausted, about to shut off brain wants him to be careful of, but Donghyuck can’t think through the pain.</p><p>The vampire’s face stays cold and expressionless, fangs still out in the open and eyes gleaming red, not impressed with Donghyuck’s confession. His fingers curl around Donghyuck’s hands, nails digging deeper into his bleeding flesh, and Donghyuck almost faints when the pain flares. </p><p>“I’m.. I’m– <i>let go of me!</i>” he begs, sounding weak instead of snappy like he hoped he would. </p><p>The vampire only snarls, but when his fingers press down on the wounds again, Donghyuck’s brain shoots a single, clear warning though his head, just in time to keep him from reacting.</p><p><i>Don’t show your pain,</i> it screams, and Donghyuck’s eyes widen and he freezes in shock when he understands. </p><p>He can’t have this vampire find out that he’s a feeder. </p><p>Right now, all that Mark Lee knows about him is that he’s a suspicious imposter, a runaway servant maybe since he fell from the Seo border wall. But Donghyuck has his colored contact lenses in, and he’s walking, talking and functioning– unlike any other feeder in the whole of both vampire cities bellow and on the surface– and that’s what’s saving him from becoming total collateral damage right now, even though his blood smells distinctively of something different than vampire.</p><p>Maybe Mark Lee is truly dense, but Donghyuck realizes with a start that it’s much more likely that the thought of Donghyuck not being a vampire never crossed his mind. Not because of his disguise, though that clearly helps, but because of the simple fact that a feeder like Donghyuck just doesn’t exist anywhere else, and, more importantly: <i>shouldn’t</i> exist to begin with.</p><p>His odd existence as a freak of nature is what keeps him safe, but showing pain, especially for something as little as fingers digging into cuts on his hands will jeopardize his chances of getting out of this undiscovered.  </p><p>Donghyuck stares up at the vampire and feels his whole body numb in shock at that sudden revelation, a part of him hating how he’s so extremely slow to realize all this, so unlike his formerly clever, fast-witted self that he still so desperately wishes to be. </p><p>“You’re not Lady Dohyeon,” the vampire scoffs, impatient, and the way he says it makes it clear that he’s not going to let Donghyuck repeat that sentence again without consequences. </p><p>“N...no,” Donghyuck stutters, and it’s the best he manages to say, because his teeth chatter as soon as he stops gritting them inside of his mouth. “Lady Dohyeon is my sister,” he finally gasps when the vampire leans in closer, broad body looming threateningly above him, caging him in.</p><p>It costs him everything to say that, fear tightening his chest to the point of making it impossible to breathe. His mind feels absolutely blank, brain feeling heavy in his head, pulsing disturbingly as he tries to fight back dread and terror the moment he spills one of his secrets.</p><p>It feels like he lays his soul bare, that’s how severe of a secret he just shared, but the vampire only scoffs, red eyed gleaming brighter as he bores his gaze into Donghyuck’s wide eyes.</p><p>“She doesn’t have a brother,” he hisses, and his fangs are bared, lips stretching thin and bloodless around them, twitching as he speaks. “<i>Don’t lie to me.</i>”</p><p>Donghyuck can’t help staring, absolutely paralyzed when the vampire leans in closer, upper body bending down until their faces are at eye level. His mind feels oddly fuzzy all of a sudden, vision blurring when the vampire’s eyes gleam brighter, the deep red in them burning into his soul, probing into him, leaving an uncomfortable, stinging sensation behind.</p><p>It’s as if a needle is slowly pushing through his brain, but through the spaces between his flesh, never piercing through. It doesn’t hurt, just feels utterly intruding and wrong in a way Donghyuck can’t put into words. It feels like… fingertips running through the inside of his mind, sifting through his thoughts, pulling here and there, sorting through the mess that is his sluggish brain.</p><p>“Don’t lie to me,” the vampire repeats, but this time his voice sounds soothing, almost soft, hypnotizingly calm, making Donghyuck’s eyes flutter halfway shut as his tense body goes pliant in the vampire’s arms. “Who are you?”</p><p>“Lee Donghyuck,” Donghyuck hears himself answer as if from far away. And it’s as if he’s not really in his body anymore, strings to his core cut to leave him floating somewhere above, somewhat aware of what's happening, but his mind loose and bending to the will of the vampire holding him in his arms again.</p><p>The lack of control should alarm him, instead Donghyuck feels his whole body sigh in bliss when a feeling of utter peace washes down his spine, his body going lax in the vampire’s hold, curling against him even when Mark Lee wraps his arms around him.</p><p>“I’m Dohyeon’s brother,” he hears himself mumble against the vampire’s chest, and oddly enough, this time the vampire doesn’t scoff and hiss in disbelief. </p><p>Instead, his eyes flutter halfway shut as well, a slightly dazed look in his eyes as the red gleam in them fades a little, irises darkening again until they’re back to their almost black color. </p><p>Donghyuck still feels floaty, but at the edge of his consciousness he feels the tips of his fingers and toes again, immediately wiggling them and giggling quietly at the pleasant feeling that gives him. </p><p>The arms around him tighten, and that, too, feels so nice that he lets his eyes shut with a sigh, nose burying against the vampire’s firm chest again, breathing in his clean and pretty scent. </p><p>Not that he has any idea how a scent can be pretty, but that’s what it is and Donghyuck grabs the word and spins it in his detached mind, <i>pretty pretty pretty</i>, like the vampire’s face, like the vampire’s body, so so pretty pretty pretty, <i>pretty hot</i>, Donghyuck thinks, giggling again, nose rubbing against the vampire’s shirt.</p><p>“You really look a lot like her…,” Donghyuck hears the vampire say from somewhere above his head, but he’s feeling so good that he can’t answer. “I’m glad that wasn’t a lie. I’d hate to be bonded to a liar…”</p><p>“A liar…” Donghyuck mumbles, unsure why that word makes his head clear up for a second, before everything sinks back into the sea of pleasant blurriness that spread in his mind.</p><p>“But it makes no sense… I’m sure she doesn’t have a brother. I never saw you before…”</p><p>“I’m her <i>twin</i> brother,” Donghyuck giggles, and he somehow finds it in himself to bend back a little, small body swaying dangerously, but he knows the vampire won’t let him fall. “That’s why you never knew.”</p><p>He looks up at him as he says that, mesmerized by the way the vampire looks so incredibly handsome, even with the fangs still out in the open. It gives him a dangerous edge, and Donghyuck really shouldn’t find that hot– not with the way those fangs could end his life within seconds, but he can’t help himself, heart skipping a beat or two, and cheeks heating up and tinting pink the longer he stares up at Mark Lee. </p><p>The vampire looks amused at that, one of his hands coming up to brush stray strands of Donghyuck’s hair out of his face, before he cups Donghyuck’s pink cheek in his palm. </p><p>“Ah, I see,” he says, as if anything Donghyuck said made sense, but he leaves it at that, thumb running slow circles over the heated apple of Donghyuck’s cheek, until Donghyuck’s eyes flutter shut and he leans into the touch with a sigh. </p><p>“What do I do with you now…” the vampire says, and Donghyuck whines, still lost in the touch against his feverish skin. “Do I take you with me, back to the wedding?”</p><p>“No,” Donghyuck whimpers, curling back into the safety of the vampire’s chest. “Don’t– Johnny will scold me…”</p><p>“Huh,” the vampire says, and Donghyuck can’t see it, but his eyes gleam in amusement, lips tugging up into a grin. “Why’d you run on the day of your sister’s wedding. Were you that bored?”</p><p>Talking is hard, kinda like how it was back when he just turned into a feeder, words on his tongue thick and sticky like syrup, difficult for his tongue to wrap around. But Donghyuck licks his lips, willing to do anything for this vampire, even talk and spill the secrets he locked away to never tell a soul.</p><p>The thought is sobering, making him blink open his eyes and stare lazily ahead, but before he can make much of it, his mouth starts talking and Donghyuck lets his eyes flutter shut again, instinctively unwilling to watch the vampire’s reaction when he says:  </p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t… wasn’t invited. I’m not… exactly…" Donghyuck shudders, fights against something like an internal barrier in his head and feels his heart skip when he makes it through. "I'm not exactly... legally here…”</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a> </p><p>just a very quick update to get the schedule back on track :) &lt;3</p><p>i know this is not really the place for this, BUT today was the comeback<br/>and i need need need to know what your guys' favorite songs are sskskdshsskskss</p><p>I'm constantly living and dying between the shuffling loop of "Make A Wish", "Misfit" and "Deja Vu",<br/>with "Faded In My Last Song" and our new scandalous hoe anthem "Nectar" thrown in every now and then.</p><p>in short: I am breathing, but it's painful.<br/>NCT are such kings, ugh /claws face</p><p> </p><p>anyways. i rambled, sorry. what's your alls faves? :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Donghyuck can’t see it, but he feels the way the vampire tenses.</p><p>He’s still too floaty, still too <i>gone</i>, mind still too fuzzy and slow to care too much about it, happy to bury his nose in the dent between the vampire’s collarbones, breathing in that clean scent that makes his whole body shudder with bliss.</p><p>Somewhere at the back of his mind there is an odd prickling, like a desperate attempt to remind him of something important- but whatever it is, it doesn’t really reach him through the soft filter in his head. Donghyuck floats lost in a sea of muted sounds and colours, the vampire’s scent spinning in his mind, covering every thought like snow sometimes does with flowers in spring, pretty and soft. </p><p>He’s so lost in his head, mind so far back in the memories of his childhood, of growing up on Jejudo, of his grandma walking through the snow with him and Dohyeon, hand in hand, that it takes him a while to realize that the vampire is calling his name. He must have been doing that for a while, but when Donghyuck blinks back into focus and looks up at him, the vampire doesn’t seem upset. There is something careful and guarded on his handsome face, but his hands on Donghyuck are soft, and there is still a smile on his lips for him. </p><p>Honestly, Donghyuck has absolutely no idea how he can tell it when nothing really points to it, but he <i>feels</i> that something is off.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” He asks, and it’s in the second the words slip from his mouth that he realizes that his head is a little bit more clear again. </p><p>Something unsettling starts to grow at the back of his mind just then, but it takes him almost a full minute of blankly staring up at the vampire's face to get why. When the penny drops Donghyuck’s mouth also does with a gasp.</p><p>
  <i>Not only did he spill that he’s Dohyeon’s long dead, not as a vampire listed twin brother, he also dropped his illegal status to a goddamn stranger.</i>
</p><p>This time, when he pushes against the vampire’s chest to slip out of his grasp, the vampire lets him, his hands falling from Donghyuck’s body without trying to hold him back. </p><p>“Uhmn,” Donghyuck says, absolutely brainless, and that’s a fucking feat considering the weird fuzzy filter is finally gone from his head. “I mea–”</p><p>“What… do you mean, you’re illegal?” the vampire cuts through whatever it is that Donghyuck’s brain scrambles to put together. It makes Donghyuck’s breath hitch, mouth agape as he stares at the vampire, mind blank again. </p><p>“If you weren’t registered after you transformed… that means…” the vampire’s eyes widen, his mouth, too, dropping open in ...shock maybe. Or surprise. Donghyuck isn’t sure what to make of the expression on the vampire’s face, but a tinge of annoyance flashes through his mind at the way he still manages to look handsome like that. </p><p>“<i>You were turned?!</i>” he gasps, and Donghyuck sees the way the vampire’s eyes widen, not that he has any clue why.</p><p>“What?” Donghyuck says politely, because he really doesn’t understand, while the vampire goes through some sort of mental breakdown. “Turned? Turned to what?” he asks, every word out of his mouth making the vampire look more and more weird.</p><p>The other doesn’t answer him, but to Donghyuck’s worry the vampire’s eyes start gleaming red again, just as brightly as when he found out that Donghyuck wasn’t his sister. He braces for the dizziness in his brain, but the feeling never comes. Instead the vampire lifts one of his hands to rub over his face and takes several deep breaths to calm down.</p><p>Donghyuck watches him from two steps away, curling into himself as a bad feeling starts spreading in his chest the longer the vampire needs to look back at him. What...on earth is going on. What’s with the sudden distress, what does the vampire even talk about?</p><p>Donghyuck shudders, suddenly feeling cold in his thin servant robes, eyes searching for his sister’s scarf that fell down. He quickly grabs it from the ground and throws it over his head to wrap it around himself, just in time to hide away in it when the vampire sighs and looks at him again. </p><p>For some reason Donghyuck startles, but the vampire looks so serious all of a sudden that he can’t help it. He takes an intimidated step back when the vampire reaches for him, and to his relief the vampire doesn’t try again. </p><p>They just stand apart from each other and stare, Donghyuck unsure, the vampire all serious, his handsome face closed off in a way that makes Donghyuck’s stomach flutter nervously. </p><p><i>What on earth,</i> Donghyuck thinks again the same moment the vampire opens his mouth to talk. Even from a meter away Donghyuck sees that his fangs are back in his mouth.</p><p>“You’re not a registered vampire, are you?” he asks, and Donghyuck freezes, breath getting stuck in his throat. </p><p>His eyes widen, and something like fear tightens his chest painfully when he realizes that he has been discovered. Not only isn’t he registered, he isn’t a vampire at all, and this vampire is only another thought away from– </p><p>Donghyuck gasps, this time audibly, when another thought cuts through his panic, sharp like a knife.</p><p>The vampire’s words… they’re––  </p><p><i>Impossible</i>, Donghyuck thinks. <i>There are no unregistered vampires. Why would this vampire suspect something like that when every single vampire is always registered, either after turning or when born..</i>.</p><p>He takes too long to answer and sees the vampire’s eyes flash red again, and before he can do anything to keep the distance between them the vampire takes a step forward, closer to Donghyuck.</p><p>“Be very sure what you answer now,” the vampire says, and Donghyuck feels a tinge of haziness float into his mind, turning everything soft and blurry again, thoughts processing through a filter, vision distorted through a veil. </p><p>He blinks slowly, unfocused, and the vampire is in front of him. And when he turns his head to look up he shivers at the way he suddenly finds himself back in the vampire’s arms again. </p><p>Donghyuck’s mouth opens, but his words get lost somewhere between his floaty mind and throat, a quiet whimper leaving him instead when the vampire bends down, strands of his dark hair brushing the soft skin of Donghyuck’s cheeks when he leans in to murmur directly into his ear.</p><p>“Careful now. <i>You don’t want to lie to me, do you?</i>”</p><p>Donghyuck whimpers and shakes his head, eyes fluttering shut when one of the vampire’s hands comes up to brush locks of his hair behind his ear. The vampire puts his palm to the side of Donghyuck’s face after, cupping it as he tilts Donghyuck’s head, making it easier to murmur directly into his ear. </p><p>“Who was it? Who turned you?”</p><p>Donghyuck makes a soft noise of confusion, head swimming even with his eyes closed. His fingers curl into the thick material of the vampire’s robes, a whine leaving his lips when the hand on his head keeps him from pressing his face against his favorite spot between the vampire’s collarbones.</p><p>“It couldn’t have been your sister… since she a virus born vampire…” the vampire muses, his voice so soft and low that it makes Donghyuck shiver. “Was it Johnny? Did she ask him to turn her twin for her? Did Johnny bite you?”</p><p>“Bite...me…?” Donghyuck moans, and the words are so absurd that he forces his eyes open to look at the vampire, his handsome face blurry and swimming out of focus. </p><p>He must look even more disoriented than he sounds, because the next thing that happens is the vampire’s eyebrows furrowing in concern, before his arms wrap around Donghyuck’s small frame, pressing him closer and slightly up, feet lifting until only the tip of his toes are on the ground. </p><p>Donghyuck makes another confused sound, but then he sighs, eyes fluttering shut and fingers tightening on the other's jacket when the vampire’s face presses into the curve of his neck. </p><p>It shouldn’t feel so good, Donghyuck knows. Instead of going boneless with bliss in the vampire’s arms he should be shaking in fear, but… but. But Donghyuck is a feeder. Under all the clothes, the colored contact lenses, all the trained willpower… he is a feeder who was never fed on. And even though he knows that this vampire is only scenting him for the barest hint of something Seo in him, Donghyuck can’t help but love the way it feels to have him press his nose and lips against his throat like that.</p><p>He squirms a little, sigh after sigh leaving his lips, unable to stop, his scent exploding warm and sweet between them as his heart starts picking up pace, pumping his blood faster through his veins, heating up his skin and making his scent rise into the air. </p><p>It takes everything in Donghyuck to stay conscious, to not lose himself to the fuzzy blur of pleasure that starts tingling, then pulsing in his body.</p><p><i>This is why feeders look so happy when they give blood,</i> he thinks lazily, and from somewhere far he hears the vampire chuckle, low and amused.</p><p>“Are you telling me that you’re a feeder then?” the vampire says, his lips brushing against Donghyuck’s throat as he talks directly against his skin. "You smell good enough to eat..."</p><p>“Hm?” Donghyuck hums, too lost to focus on the words.</p><p>The vampire doesn’t mind it, lips stretching into a smile that tickles Donghyuck’s skin, enough to make him squirm again.</p><p>“Can’t find anything of the Seo clan on you…” the vampire sighs, face pressing deeper into Donghyuck’s neck as he inhales with a groan. “Your scent is driving me crazy…”</p><p>His eyes must be gleaming red, Donghyuck knows. He must feel a dry, desperate sort of pulsing in his throat, an itch in his fangs, a twitch in his tongue. Donghyuck’s scent must be calling out to him like nothing ever did before, but he isn’t giving in to his urges, still thinking that Donghyuck is a vampire, the thought of having a feeder in his arms never crossing his mind. </p><p>“You smell better than your sister…”</p><p>The words lift the haze in Donghyuck’s mind a little, eyes blinking open to find the vampire’s face still buried in his neck. It makes him lift his arms and run his fingers through the vampire’s dark hair almost as if in a daze, only the low, pleased hum against his throat anchoring him to the moment.</p><p>“My sister…” he whispers. “My sister loves me so much…”</p><p>Another hum, and Donghyuck shivers when the vampire starts mouthing the skin against his lips.</p><p>“When Dohyeonnie turned… it was hard to live without each other…'' The words come to him from far away and feel stiff and heavy on his tongue, but his mind swims with the memories of loneliness and loss he felt in the months without Dohyeon, when she was already gone and he still a part of the human world.</p><p>“So they turned you illegally for her? So you could be together again?” the vampire asks, his tongue pressing against the skin of Donghyuck’s neck that he sucked into his mouth before.</p><p>Donghyuck shivers, his arms tightening around the vampire’s head as he presses it closer against his neck, his own body arching up against the other.</p><p>“Turned?” he gasps, cheeks heating up when the vampire's arms around his body tighten, too, hands sliding down his waist to stop at the small of his back, finger putting delicious pressure through his robes, right at the swell of his ass. “What– after the virus?” Donghyuck stammers, thoughts getting hazy again as the pleasure intensifies.</p><p>“The virus?” the vampire says, confusion in his voice barely audibly, because his lips can’t stop nipping on Donghyuck’s neck. </p><p>Donghyuck sobs dryly, something weird and tingly coiling in his abdomen, pulsing pleasure through his body, warmth spreading from his core, making his head spin again. He’s vaguely aware of his whole body tightening around the vampire, hips rutting and jerking mindlessly, making him blank out every other second whenever he presses close against the vampire’s hard body. </p><p><i>What’s happening</i>, Donghyuck thinks, lost in pleasure, so confused, but in so much bliss as well.</p><p>“You really don’t know?” the vampire says, voice so low that Donghyuck barely hears it. </p><p>But he lifts his face from Donghyuck’s neck to look at him, and the way his pale face is slightly flushed from inhaling Donghyuck’s scent, the way his dark hair is disheveled, red eyes gleaming and mouth spit soaked with his fangs out, makes Donghyuck tense up in his arms.</p><p>The next sob gets stuck in his throat as the pleasure in his body peaks, and Donghyuck’s eyes press shut, his whole body contracting violently to one single point of intensity before it all explodes, waves after waves of pleasure wrecking his body as he shivers and falls to pieces in the vampire’s arms. </p><p><i>I’m dying–</i>, is the single coherent thought he can think as his vision flashes white, all his limbs numb as he twitches through the aftershocks of pleasure coursing through his body. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m not letting you die,” the vampire says, and it’s the last thing Donghyuck hears before he blacks out in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a> </p><p>sorry for the late update :'D<br/>I played animal crossing for 48 hours haha.</p><p>anyways, this chapter was <b>an attempt</b> to get the plot going,<br/>but Mark Lee said, and he said it adamantly, "Let me sex up this cutie first"<br/>...since I respect this man with a mission I let him be. </p><p>see you next chapter :'&gt;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first voice Donghyuck hears is not Mark Lee’s.</p><p>That clean and pretty scent is back in his nose, spinning in his head, but the more his senses come back to him the more he realizes that the vampire in whose arms he fainted is not around any longer.</p><p>Instead, Donghyuck finds himself curled up on an recamier, his sister’s scarf sliding from his shoulders when he lifts up on his elbows. </p><p>The room he’s in is… it’s nondescript at best and Donghyuck’s tired mind flickers in a distant human memory of a guesthouse room, before his head fills back with blankness. He shivers as he grabs his sister’s scarf to pull it up and wrap it more tightly around himself, eyes glancing through the room and taking in his surroundings.</p><p>There is a window, a bed, a fireplace, a rug, the recamier he lies on… but the only thing that’s interesting is the table in the middle of the room around which three vampires sit and stare at him. </p><p>Donghyuck startles, eyes blinking rapidly as he digests that. The sight is fascinating, because even though they’re all dressed in the finest kind of traditional robes, all three vampires can’t be more visually different from each other even if they try. </p><p>One of the vampires has hair so white that it almost shines like silver, skin pale as snow, too, making him look almost otherworldly, which… well, considering that the vampire world is kind of a different world, doesn’t make much sense but… Donghyuck’s throat tightens as he stares at the beautiful vampire, his chest feeling hollow in an awe-filled kind of way.</p><p>The second vampire is the exact opposite of the first one, hair as black as ink, slanted eyes so dark that they’re barely red. He looks elegant and poised, pale, too, in a weirdly regal way that makes zero sense, but reminds Donghyuck of long forgotten eras of nobility and fallen kingdoms. </p><p>The third vampire is Mark Lee, but that’s of little comfort, because to Donghyuck’s great consternation he looks even more handsome with the golden tint of the slowly setting evening sun shining through the window from behind him.</p><p>Donghyuck takes a moment to stare at him, taking in the way the vampire stares back with that guarded expression on his face again, but the longer they look at each other the more a sudden awkwardness in the room grows.</p><p>One of the other two vampires coughs, and that’s what breaks the spell. Donghyuck blinks and curls into his sister’s scarf while Mark Lee quickly looks down at the table, hands balling to fists around the cutlery in them. </p><p>They must have been mid dinner, Donghyuck realizes, dazedness in his head lifting when sudden hunger aches in his stomach and makes it grumble. The sound is barely audible, but his awakening cut every sound in the room into speechlessness, and Donghyuck is very aware that they all heard it. </p><p>“Are you hungry or like… <i>hungry</i>?” one of the vampires, the one with that weird silvery hair, asks awkwardly, and Donghyuck flinches, but feels endless sweet relief at the words as well. </p><p>He doesn’t know what happened, or… more like <i>refuses</i> to acknowledge what happened, eyes fluttering shut at the memory of Mark Lee’s arms around him, face burning red and hot in embarrassment ...but at least no one found out what he truly is and that’s what’s most important. </p><p>Before he can answer there is movement under the table, and then the vampire that addressed Donghyuck yelps when one of Mark Lee’s feet kicks against the vampire’s shin. </p><p>“<i>It’s a legitimate question</i>–” the vampire wheezes, his own leg kicking sideways in a weak act of vengeance. </p><p>Mark Lee just lifts both his legs under the table, feet slamming against the other vampire’s seat with enough force to make it fall over. The vampire on it falls out and on the floor with an undignified screech, his flailing hands taking half the things on the table down with him as he grabs for the table cloth in an attempt to hold onto something. </p><p>Donghyuck’s mouth drops open when Mark Lee starts laughing, the vampire on the floor jumping to his feet to lunge at him when––  <i>a deep deep deep siiiigh</i>, long suffering and full of resignation makes Donghyuck shift his attention to the third vampire, the dark haired one, who… oh. </p><p>Who sits poised and sophisticated in his seat at the other end of the table, dainty fingers holding half of a bread bun in one hand and a small butter knife in the other. Besides his deep sigh, this vampire seems adamant to pretermit the existence of the other two, his dark eyes– <i>just as dark as Mark Lee’s,</i> Donghyuck thinks with a start, focused on Donghyuck alone.</p><p>It should be frightening, and honestly it kind of is, but there is some sort of smile on this vampire’s face, for Donghyuck alone obviously, as it turns sour whenever Mark Lee or the other vampire raise their voices during their fight. </p><p>“Come,” the vampire tells Donghyuck, ”Ignore Mark and Jaemin, they’re dumb and always at each other's throats.”</p><p>Donghyuck startles when a full smile blooms on the vampire’s face the moment Mark Lee and the other vampire, <i>Jaemin</i>, whine with indignation. He ignores them, eyes still on Donghyuck, nodding encouragingly at him while pointing at the only unoccupied chair with the tip of his butter knife. </p><p>And in all honesty, that’s… that’s kind of terrifying, especially when the vampire’s smile widens when Donghyuck takes a cautious step closer. </p><p>Donghyuck throws a nervous glance at the two vampires at the other end of the table, hands gripping his sister’s scarf tightly, feeling intimidated, but Mark Lee and Jaemin stopped their quarrel, both their eyes back on him which really doesn’t help Donghyuck to feel any less nervous.</p><p>“I’m Doyoung,” the vampire that beckoned him closer tells him as soon as Donghyuck reaches for the chair to pull it from the table. </p><p>“And I’m starving,” Donghyuck replies flatly, heart skipping in his chest for a split second, both from shock and utter surprise at his own words. His eyes widen and his lips open the slightest bit as a feeling of a faded echo washes over him. </p><p>It’s only for a second, but his whole body freezes in disbelief at the way he feels so… so like <i>himself</i> again. Like the past five years never happened, like he slipped back into his human skin, connected back to his old, quick witted, brave self. So familiar and so foreign, like a sensory deja-vu, and Donghyuck’s chest feels full with something heavy, heart aching in a way it didn’t for a long while. </p><p><i>I’m still myself,</i> Donghyuck forces loudly through his spinning head, teeth gritting and hands tightening around the backrest of the chair. <i>I’m still Lee Donghyuck.</i></p><p>He forces himself to sit down just when Jaemin starts laughing, but the vampire stops as soon as Doyoung sends him a sinister side glance, making him flush in embarrassment which makes Mark snicker quietly at him. </p><p>Donghyuck’s head spins when he realizes that he sits at a table with three vampires, all of them unaware that <i>he</i> is actually their preferred choice of lunch. </p><p>“His highne–” Doyoung starts, but he suddenly jolts in his seat, words cut as he yelps and reaches under the table, making Donghyuck flinch and furrow his eyebrows in alarm.</p><p>But before he can ask the vampire what’s going on, Donghyuck catches Mark straightening from his slouched position on his seat, an unreadable expression on his face. Donghyuck has no idea what’s happening, but the next time Doyoung speaks he does it through gritted teeth.</p><p> “<i>I mean… M- Mark</i>...” he stammers, butter knife pointing at Mark Lee who leans back on his chair, arms crossed in front of his chest and chin up as he looks at Doyoung with one eyebrow raised. Donghyuck loathes him a little for looking so handsome even in the face of Doyoung’s butter knife. “M...Mark already told us your name. And how you two <i>met.</i>”</p><p>Donghyuck’s heart does that skippy thing again, but he’s good at hiding his fear, so he says nothing, just forces his hands to reach out for one of the bread rolls, immediately starting to eat. </p><p>“Wow, you’re really hungry if you can eat this dry ass stuff without anything on top,” Jaemin mutters. </p><p>“You took the glass of jam down with you,” Donghyuck mumbles back, mouth full with his bread roll. The vampire, Jaemin, is right, though, it is dry as ...as ass.</p><p>“Right,” Jaemin says, and then he starts smiling really broadly, and Donghyuck swallows nervously, not liking the look on the vampire’s face. “I’m Na Jaemin, Mark’s vampire companion. And you’re not Lady Dohyeon, I can see that now.”</p><p>Donghyuck stills at the words, his mouthful of bread getting stuck painfully in his throat as all three vampires stare at him. </p><p>“I’m… I’m not Lady Dohyeon,” he says, stammers really, the blob of bread mush in his throat sliding down agonizingly slow, making him tear up from the pain. “My name is Lee Donghyuck.”</p><p>“There is no need to cry, child,” the vampire closest to Donghyuck, Doyoung, says, and one of his hands reaches over the table to cover one of Donghyuck’s, though it pulls away politely when Donghyuck flinches at the contact. </p><p>“Yeah, Mark said the same. But when he came in here with you in his arms we really thought he stole Johnny’s bride for a second,” Jaemin laughs, “You look a lot like her. Ah, maybe a little prettier…”</p><p>Donghyuck feels both annoyance and indignation at the vampire’s words, his fingers around the bread bun tightening to the point of crumbling it, sudden anger flashing in his veins, foreign and hot, unlike anything he has felt since the virus. </p><p>A sudden headache starts pulsing right behind his forehead, shooting lightning bolts of pain down his spine as the nerve ends through his whole body come alive with a prickling sensation. </p><p>Reality slips away faster than Donghyuck can realize it, but instead of slipping back into a haze everything suddenly gains on intensity, everything feeling too loud, too close, too fast. </p><p>Donghyuck’s mouth drops open when his breathing starts to get irregular, fingers reaching to grip at anything to anchor himself, but even the brush of his fingertips against the table cloth feels too intense. </p><p>He feels so alive, but he feels so overwhelmed, too, doesn’t know what to make of all the fast emotion rushing through his brain in such quick succession. </p><p>There is fear and anger and pain and embarrassment, so much confusion and shame, years of frustration and misery, so much desperate yearning too, so many repressed feelings, and Donghyuck… Donghyuck gets lost in all of that, too overwhelmed as he’s suddenly confronted with all of it at once.</p><p>He starts shaking, anger forgotten as he loses hold of himself. He grits his teeth and lets the bun fall from his hand to grab his sister’s scarf instead, scared of falling apart just like that. But before anything can happen, Doyoung’s voice cuts through the chaos that spins in Donghyuck’s head.</p><p>“You’re not in danger. You don’t have to be afraid. Mark told us what you are. We know.”</p><p><i>What did he tell you? What do you know?</i> Donghyuck wonders desperately at the verge of crying, his hands pulling the scarf over his head, body curling into it, wanting to disappear. </p><p>He doesn’t even realize it when the first tears start sliding down his cheeks, too caught up in the chaos of emotions still spinning in his head. He feels so lost, doesn’t know which feeling to cling to, to get through the situation without truly losing himself.</p><p>That’s when Mark Lee’s voice cuts through the growing panic in him like a knife. </p><p>“<i>It’s okay, don’t cry. You’re safe, I promise.</i>”</p><p>Donghyuck hiccups, clings to the voice as if to a lifeline and lets it pull him away from the pain in his chest and head, away from everything suffocating him from the inside. </p><p>“<i>Yeah,</i>” Mark Lee encourages him. <i>”Just like that. Follow my voice, it’s gonna be okay. I promise. I’ll keep you safe.”</i></p><p>Everything is blurry, barely coherent, but Donghyuck feels Mark Lee’s arms around him when he comes to, and they feel solid and safe and warm, and he clings to those feelings, lets them guide him fully back to awareness, quiet and calm.</p><p>He’s back on the recamier, he realizes, but this time curled up on Mark Lee’s lap instead of on top of it, his arms and legs wrapped around the vampire, both of them covered by his sister's scarf. Donghyuck doesn’t even have it in himself to feel embarrassed at the way he buries his nose in the vampire’s neck to breathe in his scent, the cleanliness of it making him calm down faster than anything else. </p><p>He’s vaguely aware that the vampire is patting his back, another distant memory of his human life connecting the gesture of what he once saw a mother do to her newborn when it was crying, the thought oddly comforting to him. </p><p>Then the thought registers, and Donghyuck gasps and pushes away from the vampire with an embarrassed squeak, eyes wide as he stares up at Mark Lee, who looks way too comfortable and way too pleased at having Donghyuck in his arms.</p><p>“Hey,” he murmurs, and Donghyuck’s treacherous heart does that skippy thing again, chest feeling full, this time with something desperately intense and fluidly hot that’s clawing at his guts. “You’re back.”</p><p>“B...back?” Donghyuck stammers, face flushed so red that it almost feels painful when Mark Lee loosens the hold he has around his body to lift his hands up and cup Donghyuck’s face in them.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, a smile widening on his face, and Donghyuck’s heart <i>aches</i>– it… it really, fucking, <i>aches</i> in his chest, and it feels like it siiiiighs really really deeply, full of yearning and despair, and– <i>god that’s, ...that’s weird! And… and why is Mark Lee leaning down, what’s–</i> </p><p>Donghyuck’s brain short circulates when his face in Mark Lee’s hands is lifted up and squeezed together, making his lips pout up at the vampire, who… who laughs, just once and quietly, barely audible really, before he leans in so close that Donghyuck can feel his breath fanning over the heated skin of his cheeks.</p><p>“Back to me,” he murmurs, eyes half lidded as he looks down at Donghyuck, taking in his flushed little face. “You came back to me when I called you.”</p><p>His eyes, dark and only faintly gleaming red, flutter shut then, his quiet sigh slipping into Donghyuck’s open mouth and down his lungs as the vampire closes the distance between them and brushes his lips against Donghyuck’s for a kiss. </p><p> </p><p>“Don’t run away again, Lee Donghyuck. I’ll pull you right back to me.”</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a> </p><p>ssnnnnkksknsksknkkkk.</p><p>maybe it's a good moment to drop that those two are emotionally<br/>chained to each other haha \:'D/ bye</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Somewhere at the back of his mind Donghyuck knows that the longer he and Mark Lee keep staring at each other the more awkward it gets.</p><p>But it doesn't, and that's... kind of worrisome. Donghyuck gets comfortably lost in the faint gleam of red in the vampire's eyes, heat on his cheeks tingling more and more as a slow smile starts to spread on Mark Lee's lips.</p><p>The vampire's hands are still around Donghyuck’s face, still cupping it, thumbs digging gently into the soft flesh under the pink apple of his cheeks, running in slow circles that make something in Donghyuck's abdomen arch and shudder.</p><p>It's too close to the reaction of what he felt back when he fainted in the vampire's arms, and that's– it's embarrassing enough of a realization to finally snap him out of it.</p><p>He shakes his head out of the vampire's grasp, his own hands coming up to push flat against the other's chest. He knows by now that Mark Lee only yields when he wants to, but to Donghyuck's luck the vampire complies and bends back under the pressure of his hands.</p><p>That irritatingly handsome smile is still on his face, even when Donghyuck leans back as far as possible to get some distance between them without falling from the vampire’s lap. Mark Lee only lifts an eyebrow and looks at him, though, his empty hands sliding down the sides of Donghyuck's body to link together behind the small of his back. He’s caging Donghyuck in, but he does it softly, sweetly, an utter contrast to the expression on his face and the eyes he watches Donghyuck with, both too intense, both so focused, making Donghyuck drop his gaze, unable to stand it. </p><p>"I didn't–" Donghyuck stutters, embarrassment at being looked at like <i>that</i> making him blush even harder and squirm helplessly in the vampire's arms.</p><p>"Didn't what?" Mark Lee asks, smile on his lips widening, and of course he tilts his head and has strands of his black hair falling into his face.</p><p>"Run away" Donghyuck forces out, louder than intended, but Mark Lee's stupidly handsome face is too close, and Donghyuck feels agonizing shame burn hot in his chest.</p><p>"Oh?" the vampire says with another rise of one of his perfect eyebrows, and... and Donghyuck feels so <i>exhausted</i>, every fibre of his being rejoicing when Doyoung's voice cuts through the moment and bursts the weird bubble around him and Mark.</p><p>"There is no need to be embarrassed for being sacred," the vampire says quietly, and Donghyuck is lost for a good moment before he remembers that he slipped into his panic attack after talking to Doyoung.</p><p><i>"You're not in danger,"</i> the vampire had told him just before Donghyuck had lost it. But he had also said that <i>Mark told them what Donghyuck is</i> –– and Donghyuck feels his stomach clench and then twist at that, still wondering what exactly it was that Mark Lee told them about him.</p><p>“It must have been a shock,” the other vampire, <i>Jaemin</i>, pipes in, and his voice is so close that Donghyuck startles, breath hitching when he turns his head and finds the vampire leaning into his space. “Usually people piss their pants or attack us when they see me and Doie hyung. You’re good.”</p><p>“I literally had a panic attack.”</p><p>“Nah that’s nothing,” Jaemin laughs, hands reaching out for Donghyuck, but lifting up in surrender when, unbeknownst to Donghyuck, Mark Lee’s eyes flash red in warning behind Donghyuck’s head. “But as Doie hyung said, no need to feel embarrassed. We’re used to it, it comes with the job.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s expression is carefully blank, but Jaemin’s words make no sense and bring nothing but confusion. He has a really bad feeling all of a sudden, though, but before he can ask a wary question, Mark Lee grabs his cheeks again, this time to pinch them softly, making Donghyuck turn his head around again and look at the vampire in confusion. </p><p>“It must have been a shock to see the enforcers in front of you… I’m sorry for scaring you like that,” Mark says quietly, his right hand letting go of Donghyuck’s cheek to lock a strand of hair behind the human’s ear. “I didn’t think what it would look like to you when I brought you here… I’m sorry.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s ear, still tingling from the sweet touch, burns bright red, but even though he’s embarrassed as hell, the confusion that has been rising steadily finally snaps. </p><p>“I– <i>what?</i>” He says, “What are you all… talking about? Enforcers… what?” </p><p>He stares at Mark Lee, taking in the way the vampire looks at him in confusion now, then watches with rising concern as the vampire’s face goes through various stages of disbelief before it settles into something… guarded? Donghyuck can’t really read the expression, but he doesn’t have a chance to feel anxious about it, the vampire throwing a quick glance at Doyoung and Jaemin that are somewhere behind Donghyuck before he schools his face into something more neutral.</p><p>The quick exchange of glances must have meant something, because it isn’t Mark who opens his mouth to talk, but Doyoung.</p><p>“How… brand new are you?” the vampire asks from behind, but when Donghyuck tries to turn his head he finds that Mark Lee’s hands won’t let him, the vampire’s fingers digging into the soft skin of his cheeks.</p><p>“Why–”</p><p>“It’s just,” Jaemin interrupts him before Donghyuck can say more. “You must be very new… How can you not know what enforcers are. Do you really not know?”</p><p>“Well, he didn’t know about Mark either,” Doyoung mutters quietly, and it makes Jaemin snap his mouth shut with a clack, both vampires staring holes into the back of his head, Donghyuck knows.</p><p>He can’t turn to look at them though, face still gripped tightly, though not painfully, in Mark Lee’s hands. Donghyuck stares into the vampire’s eyes, lost and utterly confused, feeling more and more irritated at the way Mark doesn’t let go of him. He can’t help it, he pouts, the vampire’s thumbs digging deeper into the hollow of his cheeks as Donghyuck’s lips twist cutely. </p><p>“I don’t know anything,” he tries to say, but it comes out very muffled, a little bit of saliva dripping from his pouty lips, making him grimace. “Also my cheeks are very delicate,” he mumbles into Mark Lee’s grip next. “Your hands are very cold.”</p><p>“Been a while since I fed,” Mark Lee says smoothly, and Donghyuck feels his irritation rise at the way even the vampire’s voice sounds handsome now. </p><p>But, he lets go of Donghyuck’s face, and Donghyuck hates himself a little for chasing his touch, but he doesn’t really have time to dwell on it as his small body falls forward and he barely saves himself from face-planting against the vampire’s chest, only just managing to balance himself by reaching out for Mark Lee and gripping his shoulders as their upper bodies crash. </p><p>The vampire’s arms are around him in the next second, keeping Donghyuck pressed against himself, not yielding when Donghyuck gasps and pushes against Mark’s chest. </p><p>“Let go,” he whines, embarrassed, but Mark Lee doesn’t, and when Donghyuck twists in the vampire’s hold to look up at his face he sees him smiling down at him. </p><p>“No,” the vampire laughs, “I thought you don’t know anything. Be a good baby and stay in my arms.”</p><p>Donghyuck gapes, aroused shame making a flush crash onto his face and chest so violently that he feels faint for a moment. How dare this motherfucker look so devilishly good while manhandling him, that’s <i>outrageous!</i></p><p>“<i>I know enough!</i>” Donghyuck squeaks, but his words only widen the grin on the vampire’s lips.</p><p>“Oh, really?” he scoffs good naturedly, but his arms stay wrapped around Donghyuck.</p><p>The shame at being so stupidly attracted, and the irritation at constantly hating himself for it reaches a peak, and Donghyuck feels himself explode even before he balles his hands to fists and opens his mouth to snap. </p><p>He doesn’t remember the last time he felt anything as remotely intense as the annoyance that makes the blood in his veins pulse loudly in his ears, and the emotions are overwhelming, exhausting what little strength is left in him – but everything feels heated and quick, and his mouth twists and turns as he spits out what he knows to wipe that annoying grin off Mark Lee’s scandalously hot face. </p><p>“Your last names, Kim, Na and Lee– I know you're from the 5 noble houses,” he hisses, hands pushing against Mark’s chest again and gritting his teeth when the vampire doesn’t yield.  </p><p>“You're all dressed in traditional robes. Only a big social event would call for that, and my sister’s wedding is the biggest event of the century. Also, since yours are made from silk, and since all guests of Dohyeon’s wedding have to be at least nobles, I know that you're also important members of your houses.”</p><p>Somewhere at the back of his head, a tiny voice full of astonishment marvels at the fact that he doesn’t stutter even once, that he finds all the right words, that he has enough breath to say all of this without his voice even cracking once. Donghyuck is so exhausted, feels the well known tiredness and apathy creeping up on him like it always eventually does whenever he overexerts himself, but he grits his teeth and pushes through, hands tightening on Mark Lee’s shoulders to anchor himself.</p><p>There’s only one more thing to say anyways before he can slump against the vampire and catch his breath. He can’t check on Doyoung and Jaemin who are still standing somewhere behind him, but the grin on Mark Lee’s face is gone, in its stead a smile now, one that doesn’t feel mocking at all.</p><p>“Well, okay you–” Jaemin starts, but Donghyuck makes a noise like an angry cat, shutting him up immediately. He doesn't even notice that Mark’s lips start to twitch at that, the vampire’s dark eyes twinkling when he locks eyes with Jaemin for a second before he directs his gaze back at the angry small thing on his lap.</p><p>“A– as I said,” Donghyuck says, and his ears that juuust started to turn back normal in color, tint a bright pink again when he stutters. He’s clinging to the last of his willpower to force the words out now. “I know enough. Also he,” he says while pointing at Mark, “he said he’s Johnny’s cousin!”</p><p>He pouts when he finishes, only for a second though, before black flickers at the edge of his vision and he slumps forward against Mark Lee’s nice chest, hands shaking where he manages to grip the vampire’s shirt after his hold on his shoulders slipped. </p><p>Mark’s arms are still around him, Donghyuck feels them wrapped warm and safe against his body as he shakes in the vampire’s arms, but Mark's cold hands that had been pressing against the small of Donghyuck's back rub soothing circles up and down his spine now, calming him down and also making him feel safe enough to let his eyes flutter shut. He’s so exhausted that he checks out for a couple of minutes, mind woozy when he opens his eyes again.</p><p>“Did you get it all off your chest?” Mark’s quiet voice says as soon as Donghyuck sighs into his chest, signaling that he’s back again. The vampire sounds gentle, so Donghyuck isn’t too concerned when he nods slowly. Already he feels ridiculous for having snapped like that, going on about what he knows as if to prove himself… like a little knowitall, ultimately proving that he knows… nothing really. Making a fool of himself, and for what? </p><p>“You fainted,” Doyoung informs him, and when Donghyuck turns to look at him he sees worry and nothing else in the vampire’s sharp eyes. </p><p>“Were you scared that we’d be angry and hurt you after you lectured us?”</p><p>Donghyuck turns his head to the other side to find Jaemin smiling at him, only then noticing that both he and Doyoung are sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the recamier that he and Mark are seated on. Donghyuck hides his face against Mark’s chest and shakes his head, suddenly embarrassed and exhausted again.</p><p>What a whirlwind of emotions… Donghyuck feels so drained and empty that he really doesn’t know how to keep the vampires around him fooled for long enough until he manages to escape them. </p><p>Mark Lee might have the most handsome face and the nicest arms and the prettiest scent, but Donghyuck still needs to run away, still need to find a safe place to rest before he can start his long journey through the hidden city, up to the recessed city, up up up through the mountains surrounding it, and through the endless forests leading from it to the next human cities.   </p><p>It’s so quiet around him, Mark Lee’s hands on his back so nice, so relaxing that he drifts off for a long moment before Doyoung’s voice pulls him back from his fuzzy thoughts.</p><p>“Huh,” the vampire says quietly. “Actually… it <i>was</i>, not <i>is</i>, now that we’re here like this…”</p><p>Donghyuck is too tired to react in any other way than with a confused grunt.</p><p>“I agree with Donghyuck, <i>what?</i>” Jaemin says.</p><p>Donghyuck doesn’t see it, pressed bonelessly against Mark, but Doyoung rolls his eyes and nods at him, elegant hand drawing a circle in Mark and Donghyuck’s general direction.</p><p>“Lady Dohyeon’s wedding,” he sighs, sounding just as tired as Donghyuck feels. “It <i>was</i> the biggest social event of the century. But it isn’t anymore now, is it?”</p><p>That makes Donghyuck’s eyes snap open immediately, and exhausted or not, his love and fear for his sister has him push himself up on shaking arms, voice full of panic as he pleads, “M-My sister has nuh- nothing to do with m-me running away, o-or me being illegal. You can’t– c… can’t  p-punish her by taking away her–” he starts, words breaking and stumbling and tangling up in his haste to get them out.</p><p>He doesn’t notice that he’s crying and choking up in fear until Mark tells him to calm down and breathe, his cool hands coming up to cup Donghyuck’s wet face in their palms. </p><p>“<i>Don’t cry, don’t cry,</i>” the vampire soothes, and he sounds so worried that Donghyuck’s heart does a painful squeeze, more tears sliding down his cheeks. </p><p>Somewhere at the back of his mind he wonders where he even finds the energy to cry anymore, this close to fainting for good, but his whole body seems to pull itself together for Dohyeon’s sake – their twinbond flaring hot and strong in his soul, pushing some of her strength into his system.</p><p>“Don’t cry, Donghyuck,” Mark Lee whispers while his thumbs brush away the tears that still roll down Donghyuck’s cheeks. “That’s not what Doyoung hyung meant. No one is going to punish anyone.”</p><p>“Well, someone had to be punished for this mess– <i>ouch! Doie hyung that’s mean!</i>” Donghyuck hears Jaemin whine, but it’s only background sound now, all of Donghyuck’s senses focused on Mark’s soft voice. </p><p>“Please ignore him,” Doyoung sighs, but his voice, too, is only in the background of Donghyuck’s consciousness. “Normally we’d have to file a report and act immediately as enforcers of the law. But… you’re Mark’s mate.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s eyes flutter open for a heartbeat before he shuts them again, curling closer against Mark’s chest. </p><p>“Illegal or not… that fact is more important than anything… and trumps... everything”</p><p>“Why,” Donghyuck whispers. “Is Mark special? Is he that ...important?”</p><p>He shudders, his own voice sounding weird in his ears, oddly distorted, too faint, too quiet, too weak. It’s almost more of a sob than actual words, and the silence that follows is so deep and so long that in the end he isn’t even sure if he really uttered them. </p><p>“I– is Mark importa– <i>are you kiddi–</i>” Jaemin gasps, but he’s interrupted by Doyoung, whose voice sounds sharp when he answers Donghyuck. </p><p>“<i>It’s because Mark is our friend</i>,” he says with emphasis. “Our very precious, most valued and beloved friend. We would never turn him, or anyone he loves, in. Would you turn in your friends? Or their family? No right? It's the same for us.”</p><p>“Lord Seo…<i>Johnny</i>... is Mark's cousin…” Donghyuck murmurs, realizing what Doyoung means. </p><p>“Exactly. You see that we can’t report Johnny– not when it will hurt Mark as well, right?”</p><p>Donghyuck is so tired. He just nods, leaning into the touch of Mark’s hands, so soothing and soft. He’s almost gone again, thoughts drifting, mind settling when the vampires around him start talking in their low voices again, clearly aware that he’s slipping away.</p><p>“Well, but the problem remains that he’s illegal,” Jaemin’s quiet voice floats through his barely there consciousness. Donghyuck feels his awareness prickle weakly, but he’s too exhausted to really listen in.</p><p>“We can't just announce him as Mark’s mate without having a legal background for him. That means tons of bribing and,” a long <i>siiiigh</i>, “...It’s gonna take a long while to-”</p><p>
  <i>White noise. No thoughts at all, just floating and drifting in this pretty pretty scent all around him.</i>
</p><p>“I'll bring him back to the Seo Clan for the time being, explain it all to Johnny and his wife and–” Mark voice pulls him to the surface next, making Donghyuck rub his nose against the vampire’s chest, a quiet sigh falling from his lips when cool hands stroke the back of his head.</p><p>
  <i>Floating again, how nice. Dohyeon in her pretty wedding dress reaches out for him to invite him to a dance. They’re the same height again and she laughs when she realizes, her voice the high pitched one she had when they were children when she asks him, “When did you grow so tall, Hyuckah?”</i>
</p><p>“They should be married by now–” Doyoung’s voice.</p><p>“Wow he’s gonna hate us for missing out, and he’s gonna hate <i>you</i> for crashing his wedding night if you parade into his house with nothing but trouble in the bag. Talk about a worse wedding gift than that!” Jaemin is laughing, but he doesn’t sound amused.</p><p><i>Donghyuck frowns, thinking by himself, </i>it‘s not as if Johnny and Dohyeon didn't do it already…</p>
<p>
  <i></i>
</p><p>
  <i></i>
</p><p>Dohyeon in his dream, the one he’s dancing with, gives him the stink eye at that and swirls out of his grasp and into nothingness, leaving him all alone on the dance floor. Donghyuck tries to find her for a good while before he realizes that she was never there to begin with. </p><p><i>Alone</i>, he thinks, his heart feeling heavy in his chest. <i>I’m always alone.</i></p><p>The sudden emptiness in his head closes in from all sides, and Donghyuck crouches down, scared but unsurprised to find himself small and helpless, back in his feeder body again. He tries to feel for his twinbond, but can’t find it, the bleak emptiness pulsing all around him now, ringing in his ears.</p><p>He whimpers in his sleep, scared to death, unable to find a place of safety for himself. He feels himself dissolve into the nothingness around him, his solid form falling apart at the edges, more and more of him fading away, lost and discarded. </p><p>“Donghyuck,” someone says just then, and it comes with a scent floating into his dream so pretty and clean that Donghyuck instantly feels comforted. He reaches out for it with shaking hands and wraps his fingers around it, the scent gently coiling around him, feeling cool but so soft and gentle against his skin. </p><p>“Donghyuck,” the voice sighs again, and Donghyuck thinks of a face so handsome that it makes his heart ache in his chest. </p><p><i>Mark,</i> he thinks, and the moment he does, something pretty and safe opens and blooms in his soul, a bond just like the one to his sister, but closer, more intimate, much more intense. </p><p><i>A place of safety for him, to sleep and heal without having to be scared</i>, Donghyuck understands.</p><p>He breathes in Mark Lee’s pretty scent, wraps it around himself like a blanket and curls up underneath it, safe in the bond deep in his soul.</p><p>For now. </p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a> </p><p> <br/>Welcome back to In Noctem the now uuuuh End Of Year Vampire fic :'&gt;<br/>(please god, let me finish this fic before new years eve omg)</p><p>I got severely distracted by a different Au on twitter, (Markhyuck Space au haha),<br/>after being flooded with work and then battling a severe case of food poisoning<br/>that I got in Mexico \:'D/ </p><p>...so... many unfortunate things happened that delayed this chapter until it felt<br/>super embarrassing not to update.</p><p>I hope you liked it tho!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Donghyuck wakes up, not in Mark Lee’s arms, not in the guesthouse, not even somewhere outside in the ancient- or recessed city, but to the familiar feeling of linen bed sheets around his body. </p><p>His sister’s scent is in his nose before he registers anything else, and even before he opens his eyes he curls into the thick blanket around his body, knowing by feel alone that its one of his twin’s thick shawls, one of her finer cloths, one he... definitely... didn’t take with him on his run...</p><p>The thought makes him still and blink open his eyes in surprise, and when he uncurls and lifts up on his elbows he finds himself back in his room in the Seo household.</p><p>His first thoughts are mostly blank, only tints of confusion in his head as he stares around without really comprehending what he sees. Then the full realization of what him being back in his room means slams into his system, and he sits up with a gasp, mouth dropping open in shock. </p><p>Panic spreads lightning fast in his body, but when he squirms and tries to get up on his legs he immediately falls back on his bed with a groan, flashes of black almost making him faint back into unconsciousness. The only reason he doesn't is because just at the edge of his consciousness a sudden sound, so entirely foreign that all his senses snap back into attention, chimes from somewhere above his head.</p><p>It’s… some sort of metallic jangle that he can’t place and never heard before. Donghyuck’s eyebrows furrow, and it costs him a great deal of willpower to turn his head to the side and up, vision still blurry as he stares at the source of the sound with narrowed eyes.</p><p>It’s–</p><p><i>A ...chain…?</i> he thinks, confused, absolutely not understanding what exactly he’s looking at.</p><p>It takes him a whole minute of blankly staring at it before the first coherent thoughts start processing in his brain. Even then he mostly refuses to accept what he sees, one of his hands weakly reaching out for the chain that connects to the heavy iron frame of his bed, fingers shaking as he follows it down to the bed and the mattress he lies on, closer to himself, down down down the length of the bed, until it connects to a heavy cuff around his right ankle.</p><p>Donghyuck’s whole body is shaking by the time he sits up and stares at his feet, one free, one chained to the bed. </p><p><i>No</i>, he thinks, mind utterly incapable to wrap around what he sees. <i>No that... can’t be. They wouldn't do that to him. Not when he’s Dohyeon’s brother. Not when she loves him so much– not when–</i></p><p>Donghyuck bends forward, breath getting stuck in his throat as he hiccups, his head still blank and oddly detached as he watches his trembling hands reach out for his right leg, the first sob breaking through the barrier of this thickened throat when his fingertips brush over the cold metal of the cuff around his ankle. </p><p>“Nnn...no,” he sobs, fingers curling into the metal, his fingernails digging against it, the pressure shooting sharp stabs of pain up his arms as he presses harder and harder, willing the metal to give way under his fingers. </p><p>
  <i>If he presses hard enough it will go away, if he scratches at it– if he just breaks it so it crumbles to dust––</i>
</p><p>Donghyuck sobs when the first of his fingernails break under the sheer pressure he puts them in, fingertips slipping and catching on the rough surface of the metal, pads scratching open. He doesn’t stop, <i>can’t</i>, not even when the pain in his hands becomes so sharp and cruel that it makes his whole body curl into itself. </p><p>He stops scratching and wraps his hands around the chain instead, panicked sounds dropping from his mouth with every shaking intake of air as he pulls on the metal so hard that it digs into his palms, bruising them as the chain slips through his blood-slicked skin.</p><p>Donghyuck only lets go when the chain is so slippery with his blood that he can’t grab onto it anymore, a choked up scream getting stuck in his throat when it falls onto his naked leg and leaves a imprint of blood on his pale skin.</p><p>The sight clears the haze for a second, and Donghyuck blinks when the pain in his hands slams full force into his awareness, making him gasp and then cry out in shock, suddenly wide awake, all his senses coming back to him in all their sharpness. </p><p>
  <i>It’s not a dream. It’s not an illusion. They–  they... dragged him back and locked him up, and then… and then they chained him to the bed and–</i>
</p><p>Donghyuck reels, both of his bleeding hands coming up to press against his mouth as he starts to gag, shock and nausea turning his stomach violently as he breaks out in a cold sweat. The first tears fall when he’s still struggling to breathe, vision going blurry again. </p><p>
  <i>His sister…. his sister allowed him to be locked up and chained like an animal–</i>
</p><p>Donghyuck convulses, but nothing really comes up his throat, his whole body just shaking through intense flashes of lightheadedness, his small form swaying even as he sobs and cries. He doesn’t realize it, but he barely breathes, lungs stuttering to pull in air as he chokes on his panic. </p><p><i>Someone took him down here and someone put the chain around him. And his sister– </i>his sister<i> stood and watched them do this to him, because she definitely must have been here, the heavy cloth around Donghyuck’s body unfamiliar but undoubtedly hers, put around him for him to wake up in it and to find solace in it, he knows.</i></p><p>He sobs, tears flooding his eyes so much that he barely sees a thing, shame and humiliation cutting so deep into his self esteem that he feels himself crumble, the chain around his leg feeling heavier and heavier until it suffocates him from the inside. </p><p>He’s so hurt and so lost in his misery, so close to fainting -this time from heartbreak, that he doesn’t hear the door to his room open and a handful of servants of the Seo Clan enter. He doesn’t notice them, doesn’t even hear them calling out for him, and only really snaps out of his agony when cool hands wrap around his wrists and pull them from where they are pressed against his face.</p><p>Only then does Donghyuck snap out of his trance, eyes wide as he stares at the servants around him. They look at him with varying expressions of worry and pity on their faces, and it makes Donghyuck blink, suddenly aware of the blood on himself. He lets his gaze drop to his hands, tears falling down on them with the motion, a whimper leaving his lips as the pain in his fingers flares, sharp and horrible.</p><p>He wants to press his hands against his chest to protect them, but the servant with her hands around his wrists doesn’t let go, only hushes him when he starts crying and struggling in her hold, her cold fingers curling gently around his flesh.</p><p>“Get me something to clean Lady Dohyeon’s brother’s wounds,” she says calmly, her words making every servant in the room take in a sharp hiss of air.</p><p>No one ever talks about what exactly Donghyuck is to Dohyeon, no one speaking of his degree of kinship to her, about their connection. It’s an unspoken taboo, an open secret no one in the clan dares to even whisper about. </p><p>Donghyuck stares at the servant woman that still holds his hands, looks at her calm face, her red eyes that are focused on his wounds. She’s dressed in the inner circle robes, he realizes, her crest that of his sister's, marking her as one of her handmaidens. </p><p>“Did Do- Dohyeon– d- did Dohyeonnie– did she s- send- send y- you?” he whimpers, stuttering so badly, his voice so weak that for a second he feels transported back in time to when he first learned to talk again after the virus. </p><p>He doubts the servant even understood his words, but her eyes lift from his hands to look him in the eye. She doesn’t say a thing, only looks at him with her red eyes, and for a moment Donghyuck sees the same kind of pity in them like in all the other servants’ eyes before she lets her gaze fall back on his hands, a subtle nod of her head answering his question.</p><p>Some of the ice around Donghyuck’s broken heart crumbles and melts, the pain in his chest lessening enough for him to breathe again. Then a wet cloth is pressed against his hurting fingers and suddenly nothing matters anymore when all his senses are overrun with searing hot pain. He screams, every thought slipping out of his mind as his whole being reduces to the burning agony in his fingers.</p><p>His eyes roll backwards, but before he can faint the pain sharpens horribly when the cloth around his hands starts to dab on his wounds. Donghyuck gurgles weakly in his throat, eyes fluttering feverishly as his body twists in terror, but he has to take it. Dohyeon’s handmaiden cleans up his wounds undeterred, her grip on him as unyielding as steel, her face back to an expressionless mask as she works finger to finger, wiping away all the blood and putting disinfectant on the horrible open wounds that are his shredded fingertips. </p><p>Donghyuck is a mess of tears and snot when she is done, his small body immediately curling away and into a little ball when she finally lets go of him. He presses his bandaged hands against his chest, curls his whole body around them, so afraid that someone will snatch them and hurt him again. But no one reaches out for him, the servants motionless around him as if they are frozen, their eyes wide as they watch him sob and cry in misery. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon is going to kill us,” one servant mutters, and at the sound of his sister’s name Donghyuck sniffles and chokes on a sob, the next one getting stuck in his chest as he tries to muffle himself. “She told us to make sure he’s fine and presentable… instead we made him cry so much that he looks like a drowned cat.”</p><p>“She would have hated to see his hands unattended and covered in blood even more,” Dohyeon’s handmaiden says quietly, and because it’s her and because her hands are very gentle and pleasantly cool against his feverish skin Donghyuck leans into the touch of her hand against his face, probably reminding everyone in the room of a cat again.</p><p>“Child?” she calls, and Donghyuck whose existence in the clan was never before acknowledged by anyone other than his sister, needs a moment to realize that she calls for <i>him</i>.</p><p>It comes as such a surprise that the next wet hiccups get stuck in his chest, even his tears stopping to fall, the pain pushed aside to make place for the shock when she cups his face and carefully brushes wet tear tracks away. </p><p>“Child,” she says again, and Donghyuck uncurls, a painful whimper leaving his lips when he forgets to be careful and puts his hands against the mattress to push himself up into a sitting position. </p><p>“Careful with your hands. Let me help you,” she says, and before Donghyuck can move she is on him, pulling him upright until he sits to face her. She lets go of him to grab around his wrists next, her fingers so very careful when she checks the bandages for traces of blood. </p><p>There is none, something her nose must have told her already, but she did the gesture for him, to make him feel safe in her hands, Donghyuck realizes.</p><p>“Lady Dohyeon,” she says quietly as she motions with her head to the servants standing left to the bed. “Sent us to wake you up and to prepare you.”</p><p>Donghyuck feels lost at her words, eyes widening when two of the servants step closer to the bed, both of them wordlessly reaching for him. He can’t help but recoil from their touch, even when his sister’s handmaiden hushes him and tells him to keep still. </p><p>But Donghyuck is too scared, pain still pulsing in his fingertips, and he squirms in her hold, crying again when she doesn’t let go of him, doesn’t let him curl away from them all. </p><p>“No,” he sobs, his body shaking in fear but also in exhaustion. “No, I don’t– let me-” he pleads, tears and snot running into his mouth when they ignore him and get on the low bed.</p><p>It’s the sound of the cuff around his ankle unlocking that has him calm down, eyes glancing down to see the servants lift his leg away from the metal, cold fingers pressing gently into the sore flesh the heavy cuff was around.</p><p>“Oh,” he breathes out, tears still rolling down his cheeks, but he calms down now, realizing that they really didn’t come to hurt him. </p><p>With the panic finally clearing in his head and his thoughts becoming more coherent again he realizes that they don’t even have a reason to harm him, that no servant ever hurt him before. He’s more of a ghost to them than anything else, none of them ever having reached out to him before this day. </p><p>With a start Donghyuck realizes that this is the first time ever one of the servants even talked to him, touched him and acknowledged his existence. </p><p>“Lady Dohyeon would like you to clean up and dress in the clothes she sent you. The bath is being prepared as we speak. We will have to hurry a little, we can’t make the Lady and Master Seo and their guests wait for much longer…”</p><p>Donghyuck makes a confused noise when in the same second she finishes speaking she lifts him up effortlessly, her vampire strength allowing her to only use one arm while the hand of the other keeps Donghyuck’s injured ones securely in her hold. </p><p>Donghyuck feels hot embarrassment flush his whole face pink at being manhandled like this by a delicate looking woman, but he knows that his weight is that of a baby’s to her, that his body is smaller than hers, more delicate than any vampire’s really, and that he fits comfortably in her arms- a thought that makes him squeeze his eyes shut in shame. </p><p>The memory of a different vampire’s arms around his body has an entire different kind of embarrassment flush his body hot and uncomfortable, and it’s the thought of Mark Lee that makes him blink his eyes open again, just in time to watch himself getting lowered into a wooden washing tub filled with hot water.</p><p>“Guests?” he finally asks, eyes on the handmaiden’s face when her hands tighten around his wrists, keeping his hands in the air and away from the water as two other servants undress him and peel his wet robes from his body. </p><p>It makes him squirm a little, even though he’s technically used to this since not too long ago he had still been unable to use his arms and legs and had been entirely dependent on the help of the Seo clan servants. The memory of all the years spent trapped in his apathetic body isn’t something he wants to think of, though, and so he focuses on his sister’s servant, at the way her body stills at his question and the way her face becomes guarded again.   </p><p>“The… vampires that brought you back to the clan grounds,” she offers after a moment of silence, and to Donghyuck’s utter confusion all the servants around them seem to freeze at her words. </p><p>When he glances around the small bathroom he sees nervous glances everywhere, but Donghyuck only needs a second to realize why.</p><p>“Oh,” he says. “Mark Lee and the two enforcer vampires, Na...uh something. And Doyoung!” </p><p>His words have every vampire in the room, his sister’s handmaiden included, flinch visibly, and Donghyuck’s mouth snaps shut in confusion when half of them stare at him as if he lost his mind. The silence that follows is extremely uncomfortable, and Donghyuck lets his body slide a little further into the water, wishing to sink under the surface and to never come back up again even though he has no idea what’s going on. </p><p><i>They must be really important then</i>, he thinks when the handmaiden just nods wordlessly, her grip on his hands now awkward.</p><p>“But then... why did Mark Lee bring me back and let them take me away when I’m only going to be sent back to him anyways?” he can’t help but ask, even though his words make every vampire in the room still again. </p><p>This time the handmaiden looks all kinds of suffocated as she chooses her words, her fingers around Donghyuck’s wrists twitching. She breathes in audibly through her nose, eyes slipping shut as she gives her best to keep up her countenance – for whatever reason that Donghyuck doesn’t get.</p><p>“M- Mark Lee,” she says, and her voice cracks oddly, her head drooping for a split second as if in an apologetic bow, “He’s. He brought you back here a day ago.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s eyes widen and he jolts up into a sitting position with a gasp, warm water splashing out of the tub and onto the floor.</p><p>“But- ...h- how long did I sleep?”</p><p>“They’ve been waiting for you to wake up for almost a whole day.”</p><p>Donghyuck gapes at her, but somewhere at the back of his mind a very smug voice repeats the most essential part of her words, <i>Mark Lee waited for him.</i></p><p>“They stayed here for one night and the day after? <i>On Dohyeon's wedding day???</i> Didn’t– d...didn’t Johnny… kill them?”</p><p>The handmaiden takes another of those deep breaths, but this time she doesn’t answer, just nods at the servants by the tub to hurry up and finish Donghyuck’s bath.</p><p>Donghyuck watches them all with growing confusion, not understanding the way they react, but when they scrub down his legs and reach his right ankle which is still slightly red from the heavy cuff that was fastened around it, he sobers up. </p><p>Of course Johnny didn’t kill them. They’re important vampire nobles, maybe even higher up in rank than his sister’s husband. Johnny wouldn’t touch them, not members of the Lee and the Kim and the Na Clan. </p><p>That’s what’s awaiting <i>him</i>, Donghyuck realizes. A corporal punishment not even Dohyeon can save him from, because he did the one thing they made him promise he wouldn't do when he was given that little bit of freedom to roam the Seo grounds: his word to be good and to never run away.</p><p>That’s why Johnny locked him up, Donghyuck understands when the servants lift him out of the wash tub and pat him dry. To make him understand without having to say a word that all of his freedom, his privileges as his sister’s twin are over now. </p><p>From now on he will be what Johnny always wanted him to be, a mere inconvenience, not his sister’s brother. A shameful secret that must be locked up for good, chained immobile when it starts to learn how to move, silenced when it starts to talk, left to rot and wither in the basement when it starts to think. </p><p>
  <i>Johnny will kill him without spilling a single drop of his blood.</i>
</p><p>Donghyuck feels tears well up in his eyes, but they only fall when the servants are done dressing him and guide him out of his room and up to the grand dining room. </p><p><i>Mark</i>, he thinks, and he has no clue why he does that, doesn’t understand that there is a bond in him pulsing strong and comforting to guide his thoughts and prayers in the right direction. </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p>He doesn’t know a thing but utter despair when he pleads, miserably.

</p>
<p>
  <i>Save me.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a> </p><p>Welcome to the <b>Donghyuck's tender emotional life </b> show :')</p><p>Those of you who follow me on twitter watched me struggle for days while writing this chapter<br/>because <i>someone</i> wouldn't stop the waterworks and I was overwhelmed lol which is<br/>why i lovehate this chapter snksnsks  🌚</p><p>Anyway, this chapter has a Mark version actually, but it got too long so I had to cut it in two.<br/>The good thing is you have a faster update. The bad thing is.... nothing really happens apart<br/>from Donghyuck crying a fucking ocean lol. </p><p>(Jk, a few things that happen in passing in this chapter are important.)</p><p> 🌼</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's been an hour since the servants announced Mark's entry, but Johnny's face is still nothing but a masterful mask of expressionlessness.</p><p>It's a face every vampire in the room knows well, because they're all from noble houses, and it's the one each and every one of them learned very early on to wear in public. When Mark glances at Doyoung and Jaemin beside him he sees the same kind of expression on their faces, perfectly in sync with the stuffy atmosphere of the grand dining room of the Seo Clan.</p><p>It's just the five of them, Johnny, his wife Lady Dohyeon, Mark and his two escorts Doyoung and Jaemin, all of them close to each other, all of them <i>family</i> even. And yet the room is filled with cold and distanced silence, all of them frozen on their cushions as they sit motionless on the floor.</p><p>The only one who fidgets a little is Lady Dohyeon, but Mark knows it's not because of anyone in the room. She wants to get up and run down to her brother, that much is clear after he witnessed her breaking down in tears and sobs when he arrived with Donghyuck lying lifelessly in his arms.</p><p>She can't, though, not as Johnny's wife, not as the Lady of the house. Not when someone like Mark who outranks everyone in the room sits in her dining room as a guest. He outranks the entirety of her clan and most of the rest of the vampire world, too, really, but Mark still sees her eyes dart to the door every now and then, her lips pressed together, hands clenching and unclenching around her robes as she tries to keep herself from jumping up and running out of the room.</p><p>Mark honestly doesn't get it. Her brother is back in the bosom of her clan and thus most obviously fine, resting and healing most probably, with servants around him to pamper him, Mark is sure. Of course the small thing is exhausted, obviously, since they brought him back knocked out and all, but that's to be expected since he went through quite the shock. Lady Dohyeon must know that as an illegal vampire it was scary for Donghyuck to get caught. And not only did her brother run directly into Mark's arms– he also met every illegal vampire's worst nightmare, the royal law enforcers, Doyoung and Jaemin. </p><p>Of course Donghyuck didn't initially know who Mark or the other two were (he still doesn't know who exactly Mark is), but that only means that the shock must have been even worse when he finally realized everything while being wrapped up in Mark's arms with Doyoung and Jaemin sitting in the same room.</p><p>But besides the exhaustion from going through that fright, Donghyuck is fine. Lady Dohyeon must know  this, because Mark does, too, and they both share a bond with Donghyuck. </p><p>Inside Mark's soul his bond to Lady Dohyeon's brother thrums  reassuringly when he checks on his mate and finds him unscathed. Donghyuck's still knocked out, but resting as expected. Mark doesn't know where exactly the Seo servants carried him to, but he knows that he's fine, that Johnny - and especially Lady Dohyeon who went with the servants, made sure that the boy is okay, so he doesn't worry too much.</p><p>What <i>does</i> worry him, though, is his cousin's face. It's been too long for Johnny to still wear that non-expression, and Mark can't help but feel like something is...off. The silence in the room gets more and more uncomfortable, and Mark doesn't know how to break it, has tried a couple of times before but was only met with silence and Johnny's guarded expression.</p><p>Maybe it's because Doyoung and Jaemin are with him, Mark muses. Having your younger cousin discover that you created an illegal vampire for your wife, which you then hid it in your home, fully aware of how illegal that is, is bad enough. But having both enforcers know it, too, is... well, embarrassing. A disgrace really, for someone of Johnny's social standing. And Mark might not be the best at reading his cousin right now, but the knows how proud of a creature Johnny is, and this whole thing here... it must be a huge hit to his ego.</p><p><i>In front of his wife, too...,</i> Mark thinks, <i>Even if she's probably the reason why he turned Donghyuck in the first place.</i></p><p>He knows that Johnny has to be the one who turned Donghyuck, knows that <i>everyone</i> in the room is, aware of that fact, too. The only one capable and daring enough to do something like that is Johnny, and that's why he'll be the one to bear all responsibility, even though Lady Dohyeon, who has much more reasons and much more need to have her brother turned into a vampire, is the actual responsible one.</p><p>But she's a vampire born from the virus and those can't turn humans into vampires. Everyone in the room knows that she has no venom in her system, nothing to inject into her brother to turn him into the same creature that she is. She doesn't need to, though, Johnny's love for her enough to get what she wants without having to bear the weight of any consequences, or having to taint herself with her brother's blood on her lips. </p><p>Mark sits in quiet musing for a few more minutes before a sudden nudge in his soul makes him jerk up in surprise, the flat of his palm slapping loudly against his chest when he feels the bond to his mate twist around all of a sudden, pulsing confusion into his mind.</p><p>"Oh," he breathes. "He's awake."</p><p>His words have the whole room snap into attention, Johnny's face hardening, Lady Dohyeon taking in a sharp intake of air, her body jerking as if she wants to get up but only barely contains herself to sit still. Mark doesn't even notice any of that, too focused on his bond and the more and more intensely flashing emotions in it.</p><p>"Ah, he's a stubborn little thing," he murmurs fondly when he feels the way his mate struggles to stay awake, fighting off the exhaustion as he clings to his consciousness. It makes him chuckle, though the sound gets stuck in his throat quickly when tints of distress start to taint the initial confusion in the bond.</p><p>The connection tumbles and descents into chaos almost instantly after that, and Mark sucks in a hiss of air when he feels his mate freak out all of a sudden, panic and anguish pulsing in the bond, making Mark jump to his feet and stare at Johnny with nothing but worry on his face.</p><p>His cousin's mask finally breaks as concern and alarm show on his face, he, too, getting up, entirely lost when Mark starts snarling. Every vampire's head snaps in Mark's direction, all of their eyes wide in surprise, because to them that hostile sound comes out of nowhere and makes no sense.</p><p>There is no threat in the air, no attack or insult or anything else that would prompt Mark to snarl. And yet the vampire's eyes flash in the brightly lit red, his lips are pulled back and his fangs out, his whole body shuddering as it tenses– for what, no one understands. </p><p>"Mark–" Doyoung calls, but his voice drowns in the hostile sound that slips out of Mark's mouth and when he turns around to look at Doyoung with his blazing eyes the older vampire sits down quietly again, stunned.</p><p>Everyone in the room is stunned, honestly, entirely lost. But they don't feel what Mark feels, they don't know that somewhere on the clan grounds Mark's small mate is panicking and hurting, pain flashing sharply through the bond, images of red fingertips, dripping and hurting taking over Mark's vision and making him lose all sense and reason.</p><p>"Where is he?" he chokes out, voice still more snarl than anything even though the rational part of him is back at the front if his consciousness to tame the instinct driven beast that almost took over. It's that part of him that worries if Johnny even understands what he's saying- who he's referring to, but then he sees Johnny's face close off again and Mark snarls. </p><p>"Mark–" Jaemin tries, the same moment Lady Dohyeon gasps out a weak, <i>"Your highness–"</i> and finally gets up to take a step in his direction, undeterred by the growl Mark can't help but direct at her.</p><p>It has Johnny getting up on his feet, too, to protect his wife should Mark lose control, Mark knows. It's that gesture alone that makes him calm down a little, because as much as his mate's growing pain in his bond urges him to lunge at something just to <i>do</i> something, his rational side doesn't want to hurt his family. </p><p>Lady Dohyeon is the last person in the Seo clan that would allow for her brother to get hurt, Mark realizes, and he breathes in, long and loud to calm down, his balled hands relaxing on his exhale, tense shoulders dropping down again as he stops the rage from burning through his senses.</p><p>"Where is he?" he asks again when he's as calm as he can be with Donghyuck's terror and agony still pulsing painfully in his chest. </p><p>"Your highness, my servants – I'm sending them down immediately–" Lady Dohyeon says, and she turns her body as if she wants to run out of the room and to her brother as well, but Johnny reaches out for her and calms her down with the mere touch of his hand against her arm.</p><p>Mark watches her take a deep breath and force herself back around to face him, but he's not the only one to notice her hands that are balled to fists. Her face is pale, void of any color and thus so painfully similar to her brother's when she stares at Mark and suddenly asks, "Your highness feels my brother in a bond?" </p><p>Her voice, Mark notes, sounds somewhat accusing and very frosty. He can't make sense of it until he nods and sees jealousy gleam bright and clear in her eyes. </p><p>Huh, he thinks, surprised. Apparently Lady Dohyeon's twin bond to her brother didn't tell her anything of how her brother feels right now. Mark lifts one of his hands to his chest again and presses it flat against where his mate bond is twisting painfully, pain and sorrow still pulsing in his soul, making his gut tighten in worry.</p><p>"We made sure the Lady's... brother was carried into his own room where he was placed on his bed to rest. I can assure you that he's unharmed. He might have woken up. Maybe he got a fright at finding himself back in his room after he made the effort to run away," Johnny's voice pulls Mark back to attention, and his words would probably soothe the worry in Mark's soul on any other day, but his bond to Donghyuck gives a painful jerk and Mark only barely manages not to snarl again. </p><p>"He's hurt and terrified," he spits out, and at his words Doyoung and Jaemin, who watched everything with wide eyes, get up to stand behind him, they, too, staring at Johnny with both their eyebrows raised.   "Why would my mate be hurt and terrified if he's only resting in his room?"</p><p>Johnny's mouth twitches at the word <i>mate</i>, but his voice is calm when he turns his head to one of the sliding doors and orders the servants in the hallway to call Dohyeon's lady in waiting. </p><p>"I'll send the Lady's most trusted servant to fetch him for you, Your Highness. Will that do?" Johnny offers, and Mark actually blushes a little in embarrassment when his older cousin addresses him like that. He takes Johnny's words as what they are: a mocking jab at him and the way he acts like an idiot in his cousin's house.</p><p>The pain in his chest is still there, faraway echos of Donghyuck's sweet voice sobbing faintly in his head, but Mark realizes that whatever it is that distresses his mate so much – it isn't Johnny's or Dohyeon's fault. He also realizes that no matter what, he can't just storm into the Seo clan's main house and snarl at everyone while he searches for his mate. He can't even go and fetch him, honestly, because unlike Donghyuck everyone else in the house knows exactly who Mark is. And the less people witness what Donghyuck, an illegal vampire, means to him, the better.</p><p>"Johnny, I'm s–" Mark starts, but before he can finish Lady Dohyeon's handmaiden enters the room with a deep bow of her head, immediately shutting Mark up, because he can't be seen apologizing publicly to a lesser rank, even if it's his cousin. </p><p>"Yerim," Lady Dohyeon says with a relieved sigh when her servant kneels down in front of her. "Go check on my brother. Make sure he's presentable. Take the clothes I laid out for him in my room..." she hesitates, her dark eyes glancing at her husband, then at Mark before she lowers her voice and adds, "Please... comfort him if he's upset. If... if he's crying, please–"</p><p>"Dohyeon," Johnny's says and she quiets down immediately, her eyes fluttering shut as she nods at her servant to go. </p><p>Mark's chest tightens when he watches Lady Dohyeon sink down on her cushion, her beautiful robes falling elegantly around her frame, almost swallowing her up, and yet everyone can see her shake, her hands clutching her skirts again.</p><p>Johnny wordlessly sits down next to his wife and Mark as well as Doyoung and Jaemin follow, albeit more reluctantly. There's nothing else they can do but wait now, though, even though the uncomfortable silence is back in the room, making sitting motionless on their cushions unbearable again.</p><p>But while everyone in the room does nothing but stare at the floor, Mark feels deep into his soul and follows the change of Donghyuck's emotions with worry. </p><p>At first there is no change, still nothing but pain and shame and misery. Then sudden surprise flashes bright and intense in the bond, followed by fear and then more surprise. It's a constant mix of emotions from then on, Mark's head spinning by the time Donghyuck finally calms down enough for both their heart rates to go down again.</p><p>He doesn't even notice that the bond to his mate gradually quiets down, almost shutting off until sudden misery floods it again, so thick and suffocating that Mark almost chokes on it. Only for a moment, though, because Donghyuck's voice sounds in his head next, sweet and clear and so full of despair that for a second Mark's heart stops in his chest, instantly clearing up his mind.</p><p><i>Save me,</i> the boy pleads, and Mark knows he talking to <i>him</i>, a desperate plea from his mate that resonates deep in his soul. </p><p>He's up on his feet before he even realizes it himself, everyone's eyes immediately on him when he turns towards one of the sliding doors to his left. But before he can move a single muscle, before anyone can even react with confusion, the servants outside the main door announce the entry of Lady Dohyeon's handmaiden.</p><p>All heads immediately turn towards the doors while Mark's body suddenly feels at the verge of exploding from tension, worry and an intense urge to wrap himself around his mate expanding in his body until it almost feels too much.</p><p>Lady Dohyeon's servant enters first, but when Mark's gaze falls on the small boy clumsily following behind her, hands in bandages and cheeks wet with tears, there is no stopping him from lunging at him. All sense and reason is tossed out of his head, everyone's existence in the room forgotten, when he reaches for Donghyuck with rough hands and pulls the boy so harshly against his chest that he feels his small body shaking from the impact.</p><p>Donghyuck cries out, but as soon as Mark's arms lock around him the boy clings to him, his bandaged hands sending sharp flashes of pain into their shared bond when he curls his injured fingers into Mark's robes and immediately bursts into tears. </p><p>Oddly enough, his heart-wrenching sobs help to clear the sudden madness in Mark's head, and the vampire almost smiles when Donghyuck presses his wet face against his chest, his cute little voice muffled as Mark rubs his back comfortingly. </p><p>The smile is gone the moment his nose picks up the faintest traces of blood in the air and his eyes immediately narrow, gaze sharpening when he zeros in on Donghyuck's shaking hands only to find his bandages tinting red at the fingertips. </p><p>"You're bleeding," he murmurs, his voice making Donghyuck hiccup into his chest before the boy turns his head enough to allow himself to sniffle, eyes on Mark's hands when they warp around his smaller ones to carefully unclasp his bleeding fingers from where they grip the vampire's silken robes.</p><p>"I r- ruined it," Donghyuck sobs, eyes on the bloody fingerprints he left on the beautiful shirt Mark is wearing. </p><p>The vampire only chuckles, his cold fingers curling around Donghyuck's as he lifts both the boy's hands between their bodies to undo the gauze until it falls to the floor. Donghyuck's breath hitches wetly, his eyes wide, but full of trust as he watches the vampire lift his bleeding fingers to his lips. Mark's warm mouth closes around one of Donghyuck's middle and ring finger first, tongue pressing softly against his raw fingertips, making Donghyuck flinch on instinct, but the expected pain doesn't come. </p><p>Instead, something that feels a lot like what he felt back when he first met Mark and receiving shock after shock of pleasure in the vampire's arms until he fainted starts coiling in his lower gut, but this time without the weird haze that had been in his head back then. </p><p>The pleasure feels warm and pleasant this time and very intense, tingling somehow, and making Donghyuck gasp and arch against the vampire's body, suddenly in desperate need to be closer to him.</p><p>"Does it hurt?" Mark asks him with his fingers still in his mouth, his tongue lapping at the blood on Donghyuck's fingertips.</p><p>Donghyuck looks up at him with glassy eyes, only capable to shake his head, because all words are gone and missing, leaving him barely coherent at Mark's mercy.</p><p>The vampire smiles around his fingers, and Donghyuck whimpers when Mark's tongue dips between two of them, coiling around the base in a way that makes Donghyuck squeeze his thighs shut, though he doesn't really understand why.</p><p>He feels hazy now, mind spinning whenever the vampire pulls his fingers out of his mouth only to close his lips around the next ones. He only notices in passing that his wet fingers are healed, the air of the dining room feeling cool agains the new, soft skin that covers his tips. </p><p>"M- Mark Lee," Donghyuck hiccups when the vampire starts sucking on his thumb, the suction somehow echoing sharply underneath his belly, tightening his lower stomach weirdly as pleasure shoots through his abdomen.</p><p>The vampire hums, listening, but Donghyuck only breathes out a quiet moan, his whole body trembling when he squeezes his thighs shut even more. It's in that moment that the vampire finishes with his first hand and Donghyuck doesn't hesitate to curl it back into Mark's robes, pulling himself closer against the vampire as he does.</p><p>His small body is arching up against Mark's again, searching... searching for ...something, and crying out in shock and pleasure when Mark Lee glances down at him knowingly and pushes one of his legs between Donghyuck's shut thighs. </p><p>"Wh...what are you doing...," Donghyuck hiccups, head spinning from all the pleasure he feels when he grinds against the vampire's thigh, the ache between his legs sweetening into something that Donghyuck can't even begin to understand.</p><p>"I came to save you," the vampire tells him, but he's smiling, lips closing around the last of Donghyuck's injured fingers, eyes flashing red just once when he licks away the blood he finds there.</p><p>"You're full of blood and warm to the touch," he murmurs when he slips the finger from his mouth, lips pressing a tiny kiss against it which makes Donghyuck's cheeks bloom a pretty pink.</p><p>For a second Mark is honestly endeared that a kiss pulls such a sweet reaction from the boy when everything else he's been doing to him – everything else that Donghyuck <i>himself</i> has been doing in the last couple of minutes, hardly pulls a reaction out of him besides his quiet little moans. Then he bends down to brush his lips against the shell of Donghyuck's ear, chuckling when the boy shivers in his arms. </p><p>"Guess the Seo's must have looked after you quite well then...I owe my cousin an apology."</p><p>For some reason his words have Donghyuck freeze in his arms, all the arousal in their bond suddenly gone as the small thing sobers up almost painfully fast in the span of a heartbeat. Mark frowns, but doesn't get to wonder about it for longer than a second before Johnny's voice cuts through the bubble around him and Donghyuck. Mark honestly almost jumps at the sound of his cousin's voice, eyes widening when he realizes that he was so lost in the touch and scent of Donghyuck that he managed to forget and blend out everything else around them. </p><p>The second he snaps back into attention he meets the judging eyes of both Doyoung and Jaemin, though Lady Dohyeon's scandalized exasperation and Johnny's cold fury honestly concern him a little more. </p><p>He has the decency to smile sheepishly at all four of them, but when all eyes turn to Donghyuck he closes his arms around his mate and turns his body in a way that shields him from them. Donghyuck still shakes in his arms, obviously just as suddenly made aware of their surrounding as Mark was, but he clings to him full of trust, small face hidden against his chest again. </p><p>Mark feels his mouth pull into another smile at that, but a part of him mourns Donghyuck's body pressing against his own, chasing the nice feelings that rushed through his whole body. </p><p><i>Soon</i>, Mark thinks to himself as his arms tighten around the boy. <i>Only a little more and I can take him with me. Nothing will come between us then anymore.</i></p><p>He's so lost in his thoughts that he misses Lady Dohyeon's voice calling out for her brother, only realizes that something is happening when the boy in his arms starts pushing against his chest, small form struggling to slip out of his embrace.</p><p>"What–" Mark says, arms instinctively tightening around his mate, but jolting back in concern when Donghyuck cries out in pain. </p><p>Mark watches helplessly as his mate falls on the ground and closes his hands around his own thin arms to rub at where Mark's hands grabbed him, but the vampire doesn't understand. Had his hold on his mate been too tight? Did he hurt him after all?</p><p>"Dongh–" he says, but this time Johnny interrupts, his cool voice cutting the chaotic emotions in the room like a knife, commanding all attention on him as he calls out Donghyuck's name and tells him to come and stand next to his sister.</p><p>Donghyuck's small body trembles when he lets go of his hurting arms to push himself up, a pained whimper escaping him when he only barely makes it, his whole body swaying when he finally stands on his feet.</p><p>Mark reacts purely on instinct when he sees his mate loose his balance. He lunges forward and grabs Donghyuck just when the boy's eyebrows furrow in confusion as his vision blacks out. Mark feels a single flash of pain shoot through their bond, a horrible throb that leads back to where his hands grip hard around Donghyuck's waist and shoulder, then... nothing.</p><p>Donghyuck faints without another sound, his body lifeless in Mark's arms again.</p><p>For a long moment no one says a thing. Then, a nervous laugh.</p><p> </p><p>"Huh," Jaemin says, his voice a mix of concern and amusement. "That's the fourth time he fainted. Are you <i>uhhh, sure</i> he likes you, Your Highness? I kinda get the impression that he doesn't, just saying."</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a></p><p>It was a loooong chapter (4K+), but I needed you all to witness their bond connection,<br/>before we dive back into a faster pace in next chapter.</p><p>I hope you liked it, sorry for the slightly anticlimactic end, but the chapter got longer and longer and longer<br/>and i really had to cut it somehow ughhh.</p><p>Ah! One more thing. I already asked for this on twitter, but please please please don't send chapter comments<br/>to my CC. I can't answer fic-asks, because they will get lost in all the other asks if I answer them. so the only chance<br/>for me to preserve them is to never answer them BUUUUT I WANT TO REPLY TO YOU GUYS ;;;;  </p><p>...okay? okay &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The dining room is dark, all candles blown out the next time Donghyuck wakes up.</p><p>He doesn't have to wonder about where he is and what's happening around him, the feeling of his head on his sister's lap and her hands running through his hair so familiar to him that he just closes his eyes and melts against her with a sigh.</p><p>His sister's hand pauses and then her soft voice asks him if he's awake. Donghyuck <i>mmmhms</i>, mind still fuzzy, but when his sister pulls softly on his hair he opens his eyes and whines at her.</p><p>It's so comfortable, he doesn't want to get up from where he is curled up next to her, his fingers clinging to the scarf she put around him, nose burying into the material to inhale her scent only to freeze when he does.</p><p>That...scent...it's not his sister's, it's–</p><p>Donghyuck squeaks, scrambling to pull himself up on his arms, the scarf slipping off his body and pooling around his waist as he stares open mouthed at his sister's husband who sits next to her and watches him with dark eyes.</p><p>Johnny's crest jumps painfully into Donghyuck's eyes when he drops his gaze to the heavy cloth that was draped around him in his sleep, dread trickling into his stomach the longer he looks at it.</p><p>"U...uhmn," he stutters, fingers curling into the scarf, but he doesn't know what to say, too scared to face Johnny again.</p><p>His sister's husband remains quiet as well, and Donghyuck nervously glances up at Dohyeon for help only to startle when he sees her face set into something unusually stern, her fine eyebrows furrowed and her mouth pulled into a twist.</p><p>She looks so much like him that Donghyuck knows immediately what this expression means. She's upset, obviously, but she's also worried, and that... that reminds Donghyuck of something.</p><p>With a gasp he snaps his head up and around to stare into the dark dining room, but just as it's void of light it's also empty, no guests nor servants filling it anymore. But...</p><p>"Where is Mark?" he asks, immediately flinching when his voice echoes too loudly in the empty room. <i>Why are we sitting here, alone in the dark,</i> he wants to know, too. And more importantly, <i>Why is Johnny here?</i></p><p>He never bothers to stay with his wife when Dohyeon is with him, too determined to ignoring Donghyuck's entire existence, so his presence is unsettling, worrying Donghyuck much more than the absence of the vampire he longs for.</p><p>"Mark," Dohyeon says, and there is a really weird undertone in her voice that makes Donghyuck look back at her, lost at the way she seems to be suppressing anger now, her hands balled to fists around her skirts.</p><p>"That's all you're asking? After you broke your promise and ran away? After you gave me– gave me <i>the fright of my life</i> on my <i>wedding day</i> when my servants reported you missing? After you were brought back unconscious in the arms of someone who isn't even–" She cuts herself off there, her voice hitching in a way that makes Donghyuck's stomach clench with guilt.</p><p>"I... I'm sorry..." he whimpers helplessly, hands reaching out to clutch his sister's skirt in his fingers. He doesn't dare reach out for her hands, too aware of how deeply he hurt her.</p><p>"<i>What were you thinking?!</i>" she cuts through his miserable sniffles, her hands reaching out to wrap around his wrists in a way that makes him snivel in shame. "<i>Did you really think that you could run from the ancient </i>and<i> the recessed city? Through the mountains? The forests? What where you thinking?!</i>"</p><p>Her voice pitches high enough to tumble into hysterics, her hands around Donghyuck's wrists tightening to the point that it starts hurting, but Donghyuck doesn't dare cry out, just crumples into a blubbering mess at his sister's anger, aware that he worried her sick, aware that he broke her heart.</p><p>It's Johnny's cold hands that gently wrap around Dohyeon's and loosen them from Donghyuck's wrists that breaks the miserable moment. His voice is soft, gentle calmness in the storm brewing around his wife when he calls her name and makes her tense body slump against him.</p><p>"It's no use to yell at him," he murmurs, his hands sliding down to entwine with Dohyeon's. "He's safe, there is no need to get upset about the what-ifs," Johnny has his head bend down to speak intimately to his wife, but his gaze is sharp and focused on Donghyuck, freezing the sobs in the boy's throat and the tears in his eyes, especially when Johnny adds, "You always tell me that once he starts crying there's no stopping the tears. Let's not make your brother cry, <i>hmmm</i>, sweetheart?"</p><p>Donghyuck swallows, wills the tears away at the cost of a headache exploding behind his forehead, but his eyes are dry when his sister nods and straightens her posture, turning to look at him. For a moment she says nothing, just looks at him as she leans against her husband's side, her hand clutching Johnny's so hard that it looks painful.</p><p>Donghyuck instinctively drops his gaze when hers becomes too intense for him to bear anymore, but there is no escape from Dohyeon's words, and they make him shrink on himself, wanting to curl up and cry again when she tells him, "I'm so disappointed in you, Donghyuck."</p><p>Donghyuck feels the sobs rise and get stuck in his throat again, his chest filling painfully, but he doesn't dare look up and breath in, too scared to meet his sister's eyes. Her words cut like a knife through him, guilt eating him up from the inside so bad that he cant suppress the tears any longer. They drip soundlessly on his lap- and they don't stop, even when many minutes of silence pass.</p><p>Eventually Dohyeon speaks again, but it does nothing to make Donghyuck feel better, only deepens the guilt and shame he feels when his sister reminds him that all she ever did was to love and to protect him - and how he thanked her by betraying her trust and throwing her away to run. By the time she is done Donghyuck is a mess of snot and tears, his mouth blubbering out wet whispers of, <i>Sorry, I'm sorry Dohyeonnie... I did bad...</i></p><p>"What were you thinking?" she asks him again in the end. Her voice is much calmer now, and when Donghyuck dares to lift his head he sees her eyes soften at his wet face. </p><p>Her hands are on him a second later, cool fingertips running over the edge of his lashes to rub away the wetness there. The sleeve of her beautiful dress dabs over his cheeks, and Donghyuck sits still and lets her dry his face, pain in his chest intensifying at the gentle care he receives. </p><p>"Where were you running to? What did you try to do, Hyuck..."</p><p>Donghyuck snivels, eyes squeezing shut when Dohyeon's sleeve dabs over his eyes, and his hands quickly reach for his sister's squeezing it in between his palm as he brings it down onto his lap. Dohyeon looks at him with furrowed eyebrows, the worry on her face making Donghyuck's chest squeeze painfully again, but he's ready to tell her the truth now, ready to face her disappointment and her husband's wrath. </p><p>She'll laugh at him, she'll probably tell him that he's stupid and naive and hopeless, she'll probably have him locked up and tell him to stop clinging to delusions – but then, she's Dohyeon, <i>his sister</i> who loves him so so much. Who's never hurt him, who'd never deliberately be cruel to him. But even if she protects him after today- even if she does nothing and says nothing of all the things Donghyuck fears, Johnny will surely do it in her place, his eyes cold and his voice cruel when he'll lock Donghyuck up and throw away the key this time. </p><p>"I..." he whispers, voice breaking in his throat at the way he's so full of fear of telling it all. "I w- wanted to g- go back..."</p><p>Dohyeon's face is one of confusion, but before she can tell him to elaborate, Donghyuck swallows down the lump in his throat and says, "I wh- wanted to go b..ba- back to m- mom and dad."</p><p>Dohyeon looks stunned for a moment, then her hand in Donghyuck's twitches before she pulls it away forcefully to grip his shoulders with both her hands instead. From the corner of his eyes Donghyuck sees her husband sigh and lift a hand to his temple, rubbing the vein there that undoubtedly must have started to throb at his words. Then his sister's shrill voice pulls him back to attention.</p><p>"<i>Hyuck, for fucks sake!</i>" she cries out, and it's the crudes she has spoken to him in years, but when he glances up at her he sees the heartbreak on her face. "<i>What were you thinking! You can't just go back there–</i>"</p><p>"Why not?" Donghyuck interrupts her, his voice so miserable that Dohyeon's hands on him twitch again. "You a- a- always go back to them... you w- went many times! Why ca- can't I go?"</p><p>"Hyuckah..." Dohyeon murmurs, voice barely above a whisper and so full of sympathy that Donghyuck shudders. Her hands let go of him to sink lifelessly into her own lap. The heartbreak on her face mixes with pity, and the twist of her mouth is nothing but misery, Donghyuck reads it all on her like in an open book.  </p><p>"Hyuckah," she says again, and Donghyuck allows it when she reaches out for him, her cold palm caressing the side of his face. "You can't go back there, you know that. Everyone thinks you're dead."</p><p>Donghyuck hiccups, his hands clutching the linen of his pants as he leans into his sister's touch. She cups his cheek, the pad of her thumb running over the delicate skin under his eye. She looks just as sad as he feels, just as miserable for having to tell him all this, even though Donghyuck knows– even though he... <i>knows</i>.</p><p>"But you told them," Donghyuck whispers, words ending in another hiccup before a small sob escapes him. "You to- you told m- mom and da- dad. They kn... know I'm alive–"</p><p>Dohyeon's face turns into something so sad that Donghyuck's breath hitches, and before he can continue, his sister drops her hand to grab for his, squeezing them between her own.</p><p>"Hyuckah..." she pleads as she lifts his hands between them as if in a prayer. "Please don't..."</p><p>But Donghyuck hiccups again and shakes his head, eyes squeezing shut to escape his sister's pleading expression. He knows why she wants him to stop talking, why she doesn't want him to say the last of his words. She doesn't want to take his hopes away from him, not when there are so few for him to have to begin with.</p><p>"They kn- know. And- a- and, and they still n- never a- a- asked about me, I kn- know." He sobs, small form slumping against his sister's when she pulls him into her arms with a pained noise. "I kn... know," he repeats. "B- but if I go b- back... if i sh- show them that I'm d... d- different from o- other f- feeders... ma- maybe they'll le- let me s- stay–"</p><p>"They won't," Johnny's voice cuts through Donghyuck's desperate words, and his voice comes so unexpected that both twins flinch. "You're dead to them since the day you turned. Even if they found out that you're... <i>different</i> they won't take you back, to them their son is gone."</p><p>Donghyuck breaks down in sobs at his words, but Dohyeon just stares at her husband in wordless despair, her heart breaking for her twin. Johnny is right of course, because he was with her every time she visited her parents and witnessed the way they treated Donghyuck's existence as a thing of the past. </p><p>Johnny saw the small memorial table set up in what used to be the twins' room and the empty grave in the backyard with Donghyuck's name on the tombstone. To their parents Donghyuck is dead, and no matter how many times Dohyeon tried to tell them that she saved her brother and hid him in her clan, the memorial table keeps standing in the room and the grave in the backyard is always there whenever she goes back for another visit.</p><p>She wishes so badly to tell her brother that Johnny's words are wrong, but they're the truth. And what hurts her most is that Donghyuck knows, that in the second she tells him everything she saw at their parents' home, the things she kept from him to save him from the heartbreak... he'll know that they're true as well. The grave in the backyard won't be empty any longer then, Dohyeon knows. It will be filled with parts of Donghyuck's heart and soul.</p><p>"Hyuckah," she whispers, head bending down to press a kiss to the top of his head. </p><p>He feels so small and lost in her arms, and her heart aches so much for him. They're twins, they're the same age. But the virus took so much from her brother, left him with so little, kept him from growing into the brilliant and strong person she knows he should have been. Now he is little more than the teenager that the virus devoured five years ago, body still so so small and weak. She can't bear to hurt him, can't bear to see her sweet twin suffer any more than this. </p><p>"Hyuckah, don't cry, please please please don't cry. I'll never leave you like they did. I'll always be here for you, I love you so much, Donghyuckah, don't cry. Johnny and I will keep you safe, I'll try harder to make it better for you– I promise you, I'll find a way to make it better."</p><p>"You can't," Johnny's voice cuts through again, and this time there is a regretful undertone in his voice, probably because it pains him to disappoint his wife. "It's out of our hands now." </p><p>His hand is back to rub the throbbing vein at his temple, and Donghyuck's next sobs get stuck in his throat when his teary gaze meets Johnny's razor sharp one. The vampire makes no pretense of his disdain for Donghyuck when he stares at him, but his eyes soften when he turns to look at his wife.</p><p>"You heard him, Hyeon. He wants to take him with him, and there's nothing you or I can do about it, not with the way both enhancers witnessed the whole thing, not with the way his highne–" Johnny cuts off there, a frustrated sigh passing his lips, tips of his fingers digging deeper against the vein on his temple as he rubs. </p><p>"<i>Good god,</i>" he mutters once he's composed enough again. "Out of all vampires he could have met, he runs into the one that outranks everyone..."</p><p>"Mark..." Donghyuck breathes out when Johnny's words register, and to his wonder he sees both his sister and her husband flinch at that. </p><p>Johnny's eyes meet his again and Donghyuck feels his throat dry up at the open hostility in his sister's husband's eyes. The fact that Johnny disapproves of him is nothing new to Donghyuck, but he's rarely directly subjected to his disdain. Johnny makes sure to stay away from him after all, content to ignore Donghyuck's whole existence if he can help it and only acknowledging it for Dohyeon's sake whenever his wife talks to him about her brother. </p><p>"Yes," Johnny says, worry dripping into his voice, but it doesn't really make sense to Donghyuck until he utters his next words. "Mark Lee, <i>Prince of Vampires.</i>"</p><p>Donghyuck's eyebrows furrow at that, and he tilts his head in confusion, hands carefully grabbing into his sister's silk skirt to anchor himself as the words settle. To no ones surprise, Donghyuck slumps in wordless shock, mouth dropping open into a soundless <i>Oh</i> and snapping shut again, the boy absolutely speechless. </p><p>There is no way Johnny is lying, so Donghyuck's mind, spinning and reeling from too many emotions threatening to overwhelm him, clings to his voice when the vampire keeps listing off Mark Lee's titles into the room.</p><p><i>The Lee Clan,</i> Donghyuck thinks, stunned. <i>The highest ranking family of the noble vampire clans, that much I knew from the start, but then–</i> Donghyuck takes a shuddering breath, eyes squeezing shut when his sister tightens her arms around him protectively, her hands pressing down on him when he starts to shake. But even with her wrapped around him Donghyuck feels like his heart is breaking all over again, something <i>deeper</i>, something that feels much more delicate and new twisting painfully in his soul at the realization that he was fooled by someone he started to trust.</p><p>It's what Mark Lee, Prince of Vampires, calls a mate bond and what Donghyuck knows to be a feeder call. He feels it feels pulsing faintly in his core, and it shudders inside of him, coils and unwinds, reaching for something that is too far away from him for comfort, even though Donghyuck needs it so much in this moment, even though he feels like suffocating on shock and fear. He didn't know that it could be so strong and that it would feel this intense even from a feeders end.</p><p><i>Why didn't he tell me?</i> he thinks, but in the same moment shame at having lied to his mate and having pretended to be something he never was burns painfully hot in his chest. He has no right to be upset at Mark, because he deceived the vampire, too– intentionally even, while Mark only withheld information from him.</p><p>"We can hide him–" his sister's voice pulls him from his thoughts, and it's the way she sounds so desperate, so close to tears that makes Donghyuck's chest constrict in another wave of pain, this time for making her suffer because of his stupidity. He should have never run away.</p><p>Johnny sighs, but his voice is gentle when he talks to his wife. He reaches for her with a whisper of her name, and Donghyuck curls smaller in her arms when she lets Johnny pull her in, pulling Donghyuck with her.</p><p>"Hyeon," he murmurs, "If there was a single chance it could be pulled off, I'd do it for you, but we both know that neither Mark nor his enhancers would believe us if we told them that your brother disappeared."</p><p>"But we sent them away–" Dohyeon whimpers, her hands on her brother tightening painfully, and with a start Donghyuck realizes that his sister is crying. It's one of those things she isn't supposed to be able to do until much much further into her vampire life, but... Donghyuck's existence made sure to make her cry from the moment she intertwined their fates back in the custody facility. The realization is enough to make him whimper, but thankfully neither his sister, nor Johnny react to it.</p><p>"Yeah, because they need to forge all his missing documents as a <i>legal</i> vampire. That's the only reason they didn't take him with them immediately, because Mark Lee can't just return home with a mate that no one knows anything about and that has no social background besides our words that he's your twin."</p><p>From Johnny's intonation alone Donghyuck knows exactly what the vampire thinks about his degree of kinship to Dohyeon. It makes him curl even smaller in his sister's arms, more and more helpless and angry at himself for putting her into this position, subjecting her to Johnny's sour mood.</p><p>"Joh–" Dohyeon pleads anyways, but this time her husband shakes his head with a sharp sound dropping from his mouth. Donghyuck needs a second to realize that he hissed, fangs on display, only for a second, though, before his facial expression smoothes over again.</p><p>"No," he simply says then, corners of his mouth drooping unhappily when Dohyeon's face falls. "There's nothing we can do. <i>You know who Mark is</i>, I can't keep him from demanding for your brother and there isn't a single plausible reason that would allow me to deny him."</p><p>His voice is almost a hiss again, but just when it's about to sharpen, Johnny sighs as if aware of the venom in his tone. Instantly, his arms around Dohyeon close in in a way that feels apologetic and so intimate that Donghyuck wishes he'd disappear– dragged away by Mark Lee to his home after all, just far far away from his sister and her husband.</p><p>It's quiet for a moment, the silence settling in the room and wrapping around them, making them all take a breath or two to calm down. Donghyuck is exhausted, absentmindedly listening to the faint creaks of wood under servant feet outside the dining room, almost lulled to a peaceful doze when Dohyeon carefully pulls out of her husband's arms.</p><p>"What if we tell the truth?" she says, so softly that Donghyuck is sure he isn't the only one who needs a moment to really understand her words. </p><p>He blinks and uncurls from his sister's arms when the words make sense, pushing himself back so he can stare at her in disbelieve. He catches Johnny's expression as he glances at him, finding the same kind of disbelieve on the vampire's face. Nevertheless his voice is still soft when he shakes his head and tells her that they can't.</p><p>"We lost that chance when we let them go without explaining anything. By now Mark must have told his parents about everything. What do you think will happen to this clan when the mate he announces to the King and the Queen turns out to be a feeder?"</p><p>Dohyeon's gaze drops to the floor at that, the hopelessness she feels visible in the way she bends over and clutches her skirts in despair. Johnny's hands reach for her to loosen her tight grip, the vampire smoothly lifting his wife's hands to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles. </p><p>"That kind of disgrace..." he murmurs, "They'd see it as an attempted defamation and it would be enough of a reason to eradicate our whole clan, no matter our family ties to the crown."</p><p>He carefully lowers Dohyeon's hands and meets the wide eyes of both twins when they stare at him, his  own gaze unwavering even in the face of Dohyeon's sorrow. Donghyuck whimpers when his sister collapses over and dry heaves, his smaller form curling into her side again, unconsolable when she starts crying.</p><p>"<i>Dohyeonnie, Dohyeonnie–</i>" he sobs, but his sister wipes the tears away mechanically, eyes staring unseeingly at the ground, thinking.</p><p>She needs a moment to gather her thoughts, her hands clutching and relaxing around her skirts again and again, but in the end she lifts her head to stare at her husband, the grim determination in her eyes the only warning when she blindly reaches for Donghyuck and roughly pulls him forward between herself and her husband.</p><p>Donghyuck falls forward with a shriek, small form colliding with Johnny's, which instantly makes him fear for his life, expecting the vampire to toss him away in disgust and break every bone in his body when doing so. Instead, Johnny's arms close around him reflexively, the vampire's hands gentle when they steady him and hold him safe against his broad chest.</p><p>"<i>Hyeon! What–</i>" he shouts, his voice booming so loud and so close to Donghyuck's ear that he can't help but bury his face against Johnny's chest, too. </p><p>"<i>Change him</i>," Dohyeon cuts through her husband's loud voice, her eyes blazing in an unholy way as she stares at her brother who looks even smaller and frailer in Johnny's arms. "Make him one of us, the lie will be the truth then and he'll be safe–"</p><p>"<i>You know I cant!</i>"</p><p>Donghyuck whimpers, hands sneaking up to grab at Johnny's robes, needing something to hold on to when he starts shaking in distress. The vampire's arms around him tighten, a large hand pressing gently on the back of his head to keep him safe and calm against Johnny's chest. </p><p>"<i>Donghyuck is a feeder</i>, Hyeon! The twofold burden of the virus and a born vampire's venom would kill him. You know that– You saw what happened to feeders that they tried to turn. It kills them– it always kills them, no matter what, and I'm not going to put Donghyuck's life at risk, not like that, not ever if I can help it!"</p><p>Donghyuck, still shaking, still so scared because everything is too loud, too intense, blinks at Johnny's words, breath stuttering when they register in his head, making him tighten his grip on the vampire instinctively, tears streaming down his cheeks without him even being aware of it.</p><p>He can hear his sister cry, too, and he feels Johnny's chest heaving as the vampire breathes heavily, the motion pushing Donghyuck's small body into the tight embrace of his arms, making his breath hitch when Johnny sighs and reaches out to wipe his tears away.</p><p>It's new and strange when Johnny dabs at his wet face with his fine silken robes, the gesture somewhat awkward and clumsy, the vampire's eyebrows furrowing when Donghyuck stares up at him with dazed eyes that drip drip drip tears without ever stopping.  </p><p>...There really is no stopping the waterworks once Donghyuck starts, but Johnny patiently wipes his wet cheeks until the last of Donghyuck's tears slide down and disappear.</p><p>"Go comfort your sister," he mutters when Donghyuck's face is somewhat dry, large hands nudging him onto Dohyeon's lap, her arms wrapping around Donghyuck instinctively, her eyes, too, on Johnny though. </p><p>"Since when do you care about my brother," she murmurs when Johnny awkwardly fixes his robes, the vampire grimacing when he stares at the tear strains on his sleeves.  </p><p>"He's your twin," Johnny offers, but the truth is that he doesn't have an answer, that he wasn't even aware that he could hold Donghyuck this tenderly, tend to him this gently, before his sister threw him into his arms and made him cry. Nevertheless, his voice is firm when he repeats his words and adds, "We can't turn him, we can't hide him, we can't keep Mark from taking him away. But we can make sure that he's safer than before..."</p><p>"How?" </p><p>It's Donghyuck's small voice that asks, and it makes both vampires look at him, Johnny's eyes adamant, Dohyeon's lighting up with realization at her husband's words. Her head whips around to stare at Johnny immediately, mouth dropping open for a disbelieving gasp, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes.</p><p>Both twins are such crybabies, Johnny thinks, but he looks fondly at both of them when Dohyeon stutters out, full of disbelieve, "Johnny you– <i>for real?</i> You'll do that for him? F- for my brother?" </p><p>"I will," he says, one of his hands already lifting to his mouth. Dohyeon watches him with bated breath, her hands around her twin twitching when Donghyuck makes a lost sound of confusion, not understanding whats happening.</p><p>The boy cries out in alarm when Johnny bites down into his own wrist, thick blood sliding down the vampire's arm immediately, coloring his silken sleeves red. His fangs are out in the open, mouth deep red when he meets Donghyuck's scared gaze, but his voice is the same gentle honey that he used when he comforted him when Donghyuck cried in his arms.</p><p>"Don't be scared," Johnny says, and Donghyuck tries to swallow down his fear, eyes flickering to where the vampire presses his uninjured hand against the wound he inflicted on himself. </p><p>"Johnny is giving you his blood," Dohyeon explains as she nudges him closer to her husband, and between the two of them, his sister and Johnny, Donghyuck feels the last of his fear and confusion disappear,  leaving him floating in a sense of safety as he clutches both of them needily, a soft hiccup falling from his mouth.</p><p>"Seo blood," Johnny murmurs when Dohyeon carefully tips her brother's head back, Donghyuck's mouth dropping open obediently when she tells him to do so. "You're part of the clan now and under its protection no matter what. No one, not even the royal family, can hurt you without having to answer to us first."</p><p>Dohyeon coos at him, then hushes him when Donghyuck sobs and gags around the sip of blood that Johnny drips into his mouth, her fingers running in soothing circles over his bared throat until he swallows, Johnny's hands wiping away his tears.</p><p>The last thing Donghyuck is fully aware of is his sister pulling his body against herself before she leans over his shoulder, a lovely smile on her face as she presses her lips to Johnny's wrist and closes her mouth around the wound. </p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://twitter.com/abcdefghiluvyou"> twitter </a> l <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/abcdefghiluvyou"> cc </a></p><p> Soft Johnny is soft.<br/>Also fainting is Donghyuck's <i>thing</i>.<br/>(just kidding, he can't help it, everything is too fucking overwhelming until he levels up a little)</p><p>I know i said this on twitter already, but this chapter was hard to write because Donghyuck was so goddamn <i>sad</i>,<br/>it broke me in two ;;;;  there will be happier days for the little bean tho, we're getting to it i promise </p><p>also: sorry i didn't edit this at all, i honestly didn't want to, i cant bear to look at my doc any longer, pls understand snksnsks</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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